Up to one in ten passengers on flights to Taiwan are testing positive for COVID-19 upon arrival. That’s according to government health official Victor Wang, who was speaking at Taoyuan airport on Tuesday, the first day of Taiwan’s airport testing regime.
Under the new scheme, passengers arriving on long-haul flights will have to wait at the airport for the result of their post-landing COVID-19 PCR test. Previously, passengers took the test and then proceeded immediately to a hotel or facility to undergo quarantine.
The new rules apply to passengers arriving from the United States, Europe, the Middle East, New Zealand and Australia.
Wang says that a total of 17 people tested positive from five long-haul flights on Tuesday morning. Since there were only 253 passengers on board, that means 6.7% of passengers were COVID-positive.
Some flights had an even higher rate of positive tests, with more than one in ten passengers testing positive on arrival.
Taiwan has seen an increase in domestic COVID cases in recent weeks and a cluster of at least 30 domestic cases linked to the Taoyuan airport.
Wang says right now, testing facilities are coping with demand, and authorities hope to increase testing capacity and reduce waiting times even further. He says authorities expect incoming passenger numbers to peak on Friday, ahead of the Lunar New Year at the end of January.