Taoyuan General Hospital, where a cluster of Covid-19 coronavirus infections was detected on January 19th.
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
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Taiwan’s health authorities have implemented their broader closure measures so far in an effort to prevent a growing outbreak of Covid-19 from going out of control.
Patients, caregivers and medical staff at a hospital in Taoyuan City, north of a growing outbreak, will have to quarantine at home for 14 days with immediate effect, Taiwan Health Minister Chen said on Sunday Shih-chung, in an information session in Taipei. That would also include all the people they live with and the number of people involved could reach up to 5,000, Chen said.
The order covers anyone who entered the hospital between January 6 and January 19. All those affected will have to continue to monitor their health for another seven days and take a Covid test after leaving quarantine.
The latest steps are the toughest measures taken so far by health authorities as they struggle to contain the virus after it began spreading to Taoyuan General Hospital in northern Taiwan earlier this month. The outbreak poses the greatest threat to Taiwan’s response to the largely successful coronavirus pandemic.
Taiwan has recorded only 889 cases and seven deaths in total since the start of the pandemic, but officials have reported a steady stream of local hospital-related infections in recent weeks. Earlier in the day, Chen said there were five new cases on Sunday, one of which was a man who had stayed in the hospital several weeks ago, in addition to one of his relatives.