Taiwan records first locally transmitted Covid-19 case in 253 days in contact of New Zealand pilot

Taiwan has reported its first locally transmitted case of Covid-19 since April 12 – a friend of a New Zealand pilot who was confirmed to have been infected earlier this week.

Authorities are now testing more than 100 contacts of the friend, a woman in her 30s, the health minister said on Tuesday.

Taiwan has kept the pandemic well under control thanks to early and effective prevention methods and widespread mask wearing, with all new cases for more than the last 250 days being among travellers arriving on the island.

But Taiwan’s government has watched nervously as imported cases rise, albeit at a far lower rate than in many other places, and has raised the alert level as the winter begins.

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters on Tuesday the new locally-transmitted case was a woman in her 30s who had close contact with the New Zealand pilot, who was himself confirmed to have been infected on Sunday having flown flights to the United States.

Chen said the New Zealand national had not correctly reported all his contacts and list of places he had been, and may be in breach of Taiwan’s communicable diseases law.

Under Article 62 of the law, anyone who knows they have been infected with certain communicable diseases and infects others by not complying with instructions can be issued with fines of NT $500,000 (£13,266.32) and face up to three years in prison.

The government has published a list of places he went in and around Taipei and told people who may have been there to monitor their health. 

It is testing 167 people who have had direct contact with the new locally transmitted case.

Taiwan tech firm Quanta Storage Inc said the woman was an employee at a subsidiary, and that contacts who had been tested so far had come back negative for the virus.

Taiwan has reported a total of 771 cases – mostly imported – and seven deaths – since the pandemic began in March. 

Around 130 people remain in hospital for treatment.

Separately, Taiwan is among dozens of territories and countries restricting travel to the United Kingdom after a highly infectious new coronavirus strain was found in the country. 

The government said it would halve the number of flights to the United Kingdom, to just one a week.

Those arriving in Taiwan from Britain, or who have been in Britain within the last 14 days, will also have to quarantine for 14 days in centralised quarantine facilities.