Taiwan slaps coronavirus entry ban on foreigners travelling from mainland China

Foreigners who have been in mainland China over the past 14 days will be banned from entering Taiwan from Friday due to health concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The announcement is part of the latest measures by the self-ruled island to curb the spread of the coronavirus, first reported in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province.

Foreign nationals seeking to enter Taiwan for special reasons can apply for an entry visa as long as they have not visited or stayed in mainland areas severely affected by the coronavirus outbreak, including Hubei, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, according to the ministry.

They must also provide documents of their travel history in the past 14 days, a health certificate and various other paperwork.

But the travel ban would not apply to foreigners living in Hong Kong or Macau, the ministry said.

In addition, Taiwan’s coastguard stepped up patrols around the resort island of Penghu to disperse mainland fishing boats intruding into the island’s waters.

The patrols were necessary, not only to thwart illegal fishing in the area but also to help prevent the potential spread of the virus from the mainland, Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said.

The administration said two patrol vessels and helicopters were dispatched to the south and north of Penghu Island, to prevent intrusions by mainland boats.

The coastguard also sent vessels to waters near northern, northwestern and central Taiwan, where mainland fishermen “often intruded for illegal fishing and trading with Taiwanese fishermen”, it said.

Taiwan has 10 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and on Monday night quarantined 247 people repatriated to the island after being stranded in Wuhan.

Health minister Chen Shih-chung said the 247 Taiwanese flew into Taoyuan International Airport in northern Taiwan at around 11.50pm on Monday.

Three people were sent to hospital while the rest were sent to three quarantine centres – two in northern Taiwan and one in central Taiwan – for 14 days.

“The three sent to isolation wards include one who has fever and two who have throat and respiratory problems,” Chen said.

He said the military sent chemical personnel to help disinfect the plane, the passengers’ baggage and the 14 buses that took the evacuees to the three quarantine centres.

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Meanwhile, the island’s centre for disease control said 56 people had died of H1N1 virus-affected respiratory failure in the past three months.

CDC officials stopped short of revealing how many had died in the past week from the H1N1 virus – also known as swine flu – but local news media reported that it had caused 13 deaths in that time.

Central News Agency said 13 people aged between 47 and 97 died of the seasonal flu, including an 80-year-old woman who developed a fever in late December, eventually dying of pneumonia and respiratory failure in hospital.

The agency quoted a CDC doctor, Lin Yung-ching, as saying that the woman had received a flu vaccine before contracting the virus. Lin said that the rest of the patients who died of the flu-affected complication of pneumonia and respiratory problems had not received a vaccine.

CDC officials said H1N1 had been the predominant virus type in Taiwan over the past three months. “During this season, there have been 771 influenza cases with severe complications since October 1, including 56 deaths,” a spokeswoman said.

Of the severe cases, 41 per cent of the patients were older than 65; another 32 per cent were in the 50-64 age group, she said. The spokeswoman said that 98 per cent of those patients had not received any flu vaccines and close to 80 per cent had chronic diseases.

She called for residents to get the flu vaccine to better protect themselves, saying that “none of the 43 patients who died from flu complications in the past three months had been vaccinated”.

The CDC has operated a seasonal influenza vaccination campaign since November 15, offering free shots to locals in three groups: those for students in primary through high school; health care workers; and senior citizens.

In the US, at least 1,300 people have died from the flu so far this season, according to a preliminary estimate by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.