Taoyuan General Hospital, where a group of Covid-19 coronavirus infections was detected on January 19.
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
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Taiwan’s health authorities have implemented the most comprehensive containment measures to date in an effort to prevent a growing outbreak of Covid-19 from spiraling out of control.
Patients, caregivers and medical staff at a hospital in the northern city of Taoyuan, in the middle of a growing outbreak, will have to be quarantined at home for 14 days, with immediate effect, said Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung. in a Sunday briefing in Taipei. It would also include all the people they live with, and the number of people involved could total 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 steps still being taken by health authorities, as they are struggling to contain the virus after it began spreading to Taoyuan General Hospital in northern Taiwan earlier this month. The outbreak is the biggest threat to Taiwan’s successful response to the coronavirus pandemic to date.
Taiwan has recorded only 889 cases and seven deaths in total since the beginning of the pandemic, but officials have reported a steady stream of local hospital-related infections in the past few weeks. Earlier in the day, Chen said there were five new cases on Sunday, one of which was a man who was in the hospital a few weeks ago, plus one of his family members.