Evacuation

Taipei, March 10, 2020 (dpa/NAN) Taiwanese authorities said that special charter flights have been arranged to evacuate back to Taipei, more than 400 of its nationals who have been stranded in Wuhan in central China for months due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Health and Welfare Minister, Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s current capacity for both quarantine and virus testing was already sufficient to deal with hundreds of evacuees at once.

Chen told a news conference in Taipei that Passengers will be allowed to get on board if they have tested negative for the virus and have no fever in Wuhan.

The two charter flights, with medical teams, are operated by Taiwan’s China Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, after arrival, all evacuees will be sent to three quarantine facilities.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday reported two new cases. One is a family member of a Covid-19 patient.

The other is a Taiwanese man, in his 30s, returning from a business trip to the Netherlands in early March.

So far, Taiwan has reported 47 cases of Covid-19, including one death.

Among them, 17 patients have recovered and left hospital.

To help improve the quality of news coverage on Covid-19, the centre plans run journalism workshops on public health and epidemic diseases. (dpa/NAN)

HS/YEE

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Edited by Halima Sheji/Emmanuel Yashim