GEIS-新闻详情

Taiwan set to ease Covid-19 controls despite threat from Delta variant

2021-07-08 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-亚洲原网页

TAIPEI (BLOOMBERG) - Taiwan may on Thursday (July 8) unveil plans to partially ease Covid-19 curbs from next week, as it weighs the need to revive the domestic economy against the risk posed by continued community infections and the global spread of the delta variant.

The Central Epidemic Command Centre has been drafting plans to ease controls amid progress curbing the pandemic, and is set to allow limited in-restaurant dining.

There were just 39 newly confirmed domestic cases Wednesday, according to Taiwan Centres for Disease Control data. There have been fewer than 80 local cases each day in the past week.

The decline from a May peak shows Taiwan appears to be successfully curbing its worst outbreak of Covid-19, after last year going for more than 200 days without a single local case.

But the island has recently had a handful of infections of the delta variant, a strain that has complicated the UK's reopening and forced some countries to reimpose curbs.

"The local situation is improving and moving in a positive direction," Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters Tuesday.

Even if Taiwan isn't ready to exit a soft lockdown as scheduled on July 12, "what I care about is how we can adjust restrictions for some industries, to maintain people's lives and support the economy while preventing infections at the same time."

Taiwan has been under a so-called Level 3 alert since May 19, with indoor family and social gatherings limited to five people and outdoor ones to 10.

Under the curbs, which were extended three times to July 12, schools and recreational facilities including bars have been shut, and restaurants can only serve takeout.

That's hurting retail spending and threatening jobs, even as the broader economy expanded 8.92 per cent from a year earlier in the first quarter, the fastest pace in over a decade, on exports of semiconductors and other high-value products.

Restaurant and dining industry revenue slumped 19.1 per cent in May from a year earlier, according to the economics ministry. Unemployment in Taiwan rose to its highest level in almost eight years in May, according to a government statement this week, which said there were 489,000 people out of work. Workers in food and beverage and hospitality sectors took the hardest hit.

Despite planning to ease rules, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung has emphasised the focus remains on containing the pandemic. He has also said that rather than a piecemeal relaxation of curbs in different areas, "any changes would apply island-wide."

There are some local rules as well. After a 50-day shutdown, the capital Taipei reopened its world-famous night markets at the end of June, though with fewer food stands, daily temperature checks, and compulsory registration of customers.

Authorities want people to have normal lives with a minimum of controls even before Covid cases drop to zero, Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je said on Facebook earlier this month.

Mr Chen Chi-mai, mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung, said any easing may only apply to outdoor behaviour from July 12, with mask wearing and social distancing still mandatory, the Central News Agency reported. One key to opening will be whether there are new delta cases from a cluster in nearby Pingtung County.

Taiwan confirmed the first locally transmitted delta cases in the area last month, after a woman and her grandson returned from Peru. The cluster totalled 17 as of Wednesday, with 13 confirmed to have the delta variant.