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Lawrence Chung

Taiwan will ease its soft coronavirus lockdown from next week, with the number of daily reported Covid-19 infections falling in the past few weeks.
The decision to lower the alert from three to two in the four-tier scale from Tuesday was expected to help ailing businesses and services forced to suspend their operations to contain a spike in coronavirus cases, government officials said.
“As the number of cases of unknown source has remained below 10 for more than a week … we have decided to lower the restrictions to level 2 between July 27 and August 9,” Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Friday.
But rules on mask wearing, social distancing, and crowds would remain in place, Chen said.


Taiwan recorded just 24 cases, including one imported infection, and two deaths on Friday, taking the total to 15,535 infections and 784 deaths since the pandemic began.
Under level 2 requirements, the limits on group gatherings will be relaxed from five to 50 indoors and from 10 to 100 outdoors.
Restaurants, eating areas in supermarkets and shopping malls will be allowed to open, but with social distancing requirements.
Wedding banquets, funerals and religious gatherings will also be allowed but attendance will be restricted to up to 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors.
Other facilities allowed to reopen include kindergartens, day care centres, after-school programmes, cram schools, outdoor sports stadiums, bowling alleys, pool halls, conference halls, museums, performance halls, theatres, and beauty parlours.
Travel agencies will be allowed to operate local tours for groups of up to 50 people, while tour buses will be permitted to carry 20 people on each trip.
Public places where it is not possible to continuously wear a mask, such as swimming pools, beaches, water parks, and mountain and coastal camping areas, will remain off limits, as will entertainment facilities, including bars, nightclubs, recreational centres and karaoke bars.


Chen said any further relaxation of the rules would depend on conditions at the time because the pandemic was still severe.
“Though the number of infections has subsided considerably recently, the global situation has remained serious as seen in the sharp rise in the number of cases” in Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Britain and Israel, Chen said, adding the island should not let its guard down by removing all restrictions.
Chen said that because of the widening outbreaks in other countries, the Central Epidemic Command Centre had no plan to lift border controls to allow foreigners to visit Taiwan, except those with special exemptions.
Taiwanese cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng said the relaxation decision was made after a cabinet meeting on Friday morning, when Premier Su Tseng-chang consulted local government leaders.
Lo said the decision was made also to allow most of the local outlets to return to business after more than two months of soft lockdown throughout the island.
Many businesses and services, especially in the tourism sector, have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic since it began in late 2019.
Buddhist charity buys millions more BioNTech vaccine doses for Taiwan
The soft lockdown went into effect on May 19 after a surge in cases.
The island has also struggled to get enough Covid-19 vaccines to inoculate its people.
But on Thursday, Chen announced that the island had signed deal with US supplier Moderna to buy 36 million doses in addition to 20 million doses of vaccines it had previously ordered from AstraZeneca and Moderna.
According to the command centre, about a quarter of the island’s 23.5 million people have received at least one dose of a vaccine.


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Health minister says conditions remain severe globally and island cannot let its guard down
Decision meant to give a boost to businesses ailing after two months of restrictions



Decision meant to give a boost to businesses ailing after two months of restrictions.


Chinese coronavirus vaccines

Coronavirus vaccine

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

Coronavirus: Taiwan eases lockdown as cases wane

Health minister says conditions remain severe globally and island cannot let its guard down Decision meant to give a boost to businesses ailing after two months of restrictions

Health minister says conditions remain severe globally and island cannot let its guard down

Decision meant to give a boost to businesses ailing after two months of restrictions