Taoyuan General Hospital.
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
Taiwan’s health authorities have yet to implement their widest lockout measures in an effort to keep the wider Covid-19 revolution from coming out of control.
Patients, caregivers and medical staff at a hospital in Taoyuan city in the middle of a revolution need to grow quarantine at home for 14 effective days immediately, Taiwan’s health minister Chen Shih-chung said at a meeting preparation in Taipei Sunday. That would also include everyone they live with, and the number of people involved could include as many as 5,000, Chen said.
The order covers anyone who was admitted to the hospital between January 6 and January 19. Everyone affected must continue to monitor their health for another seven days and a Covid test taken after leaving quarantine.
The latest measures are the toughest steps yet taken by health authorities as they struggle to contain the virus after it began spreading at Taoyuan General Hospital in northern Taiwan earlier in the day. month. The uprising is the biggest threat to Taiwan’s successful response to the coronavirus pandemic to date.
Taiwan has recorded just 889 cases and a total of seven deaths since the outbreak began but officials have seen a steady stream of local hospital-associated infections over the past few weeks. Earlier in the day, Chen reported five new cases Sunday, one of which was a hospital stay several weeks ago, as well as one of his family members.