With COVID-19 case numbers relatively low, many in Taiwan are starting to ask when and how the country should reopen its borders. This isn’t just about allowing visitors to enter, but also, and more importantly, foreign workers.
Taiwanese nationals wishing to return home for the Lunar New Year can do so with fewer restrictions than before. But does that mean we can expect borders to gradually reopen?
Central Epidemic Command Center Spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang says that Taiwan can start thinking about how to reopen borders when it achieves a 60% second-dose vaccination rate. He hopes Taiwan will reach this milestone by the end of the year. But he adds that vaccination rate isn’t everything. He cites the example of Singapore, where 80% of the population has been vaccinated with two doses, but which is currently seeing between 3000 and 5000 new daily infections.
Experts say there is another factor to consider in this conundrum - breakthrough infections, which are cases of vaccinated individuals contracting COVID-19.
Former chief of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control, Su Il-jen, agrees that epidemic prevention measures can be relaxed when vaccine coverage reaches 60%. However, the risk of breakthrough infections is a fact, so it all comes down to making a policy decision.
The question of when and how to open Taiwan’s borders is a tough one, but as Taiwan keeps its borders shut, it is beginning to face labor shortages. The labor ministry recently asked the Central Epidemic Command Center to allow in foreign workers from the second half of November. Only those who have received two vaccine doses will be allowed in.
Su Yu-kuo from the Workforce Development Agency says that for the time being, foreign workers will have to spend their 14-day quarantine and a seven-day period of health self-management in a government facility.
Unlike Taiwanese nationals, foreign workers do not have a place of residence in Taiwan, so they will have to stay at public quarantine centers. There is a chance that in the second half of February, industrial workers will be allowed to stay in quarantine hotels, but everything will depend on the pandemic situation when the time comes.