This is from someone in a Line group for Gold Card holders, who apparently contacted someone at NIA:
I just spoke to one of the NIA Gold Card Specialists ( 鄭玉琴）and she was shocked that the regulations for us are more serious than before. She is going to investigate further on her side as well.
Got an update from the Immigration Agency. Apparently the CDC has “received a large pushback” following the requirement to test 3 days before coming to Taiwan, so they have changed the rule: now we have to test for COVID within 3 working days…
So some progress it seems, however incremental. I guess we still need more messages. I’m planning to send one later.
That was actually how I initially read it as well. But after thinking about it a bit more, I think what it means is that the test will still need to be conducted within 3 working days before flying as opposed to 3 actual days before flying.
So a slight relaxation as it essentially seems to avoid the need to get the test results over a weekend…but not much of a change in my opinion (assuming I’ve read it right).
That’s if you can even get into a hospital to get a test done…and hospitals are full of people with the virus putting people under unnecessary risk. You get the test done, it’s negative, catch the virus in the hospital by rubbing your eyes or something and then develop symptoms on the plane.
The other thing I thought about yesterday, when somebody posted about Frankfurt airport offering tests with a 3/8 hr turnaround (depending on price, but either way not cheap), is that airport testing would require people to either spend an extra ~10 hours in the airport before a flight, or make an unnecessary round trip to the airport the day before. Encouraging/forcing people to spend large amounts of time in airports with other travellers doesn’t seem like a great idea at the moment…
Certainly looks like the intention is to follow what China has done without actually saying it outright. The CDC knows full well that it is impossible to get a test on request in many countries and prohibitively expensive in others. They’ve effectively banned foreigner residents from returning in the same way China has.
The government seems more than happy to pick up citizens medical tabs that don’t even live in Taiwan for decades or their whole life. But * gasp * resident taxpaying foreigners are trying to leech off our system. Won’t somebody think of the children
Yes, I can remember it in Australia years ago when the previous ISP supplied email address that I had used to get heaps of spam email each day, and a lot of it was from hinet addresses, so the whole domain would have been blocked in many places. I am on Hinet here, and even now some Australian sites block me. Anyway, back to the thread topic, sorry to divert.
Return to hospital to hope test returns before you leave.
Proceed to airport for international flight.
-or-
Go to airport ~10 hrs early for international flight.
Neither would appear to be a good idea if you were wanting to reduce risk as much as possible.
Yes, I don’t know that anybody can really argue otherwise. We are thinking of the cost of getting things done but the financial risk - hospitalization in a country in which you may not have insurance or residence - is so huge that there would basically be no way that you could reasonably expect to take such a trip.
Another thing - are they requiring a PCR test or antibody test? A lot of countries are testing and releasing results together. It would be possible that you have been exposed to covid in Taiwan, remained asymptomatic, recovered and, if tested in another country, not allowed to return.
I’m beginning to sincerely doubt numbers out of Taiwan. Yesterday, Florida, a state with roughly the same population as Taiwan, tested 35k+ people, down from a peak nearly double that a few days earlier. Taiwan tested 145 and the disincentives for volunteering for testing here is so high that nobody wants to have it done.
Travelling without insurance is a huge financial risk, especially to countries where medical care is outrageous expensive. If you don’t have money in your bank account or insurance I don’t really recommend to travel anywhere regardless of the virus.
Many insurance companies are not paying for Kung Flu treatment as it’s a pandemic (yep, logic flies far from that).
Most ARC holders do have insurance (and for those in a reasonable job that have wives and children, rather expensive insurance), it’s called NHI however it now appears that those policy holders who are not Taiwanese citizens are to be denied the right to return home and therefore denied use of their insurance.
My fiancee (Taiwanese) called someone at the “NDC” - maybe that’s referring to the CDC? and they spoke in Chinese about it. I will again call to confirm before scheduling a test and booking a flight.
Basically, no normal people can just walk in and take it. They are making it extremely difficult to take the test. Why? Tell me! Even poorer countries can afford testing but Taiwan is making it so hard? Even if you want to self pay you can’t get tested without an extremely provable reason