There is the added cost of coming back: pay for the test itself -up to10k I have told by an acquaintance- plus paying extra for air tickets because less flights, and the quarantine hotel - if you find a room- and if you live in a non English speaking country, then you need an official translation of the test.
Are you guys sure the locals are still getting some assistance/$$$?
No. The going rate is about $100-$200.
Maybe not, but see where that has brought them. 
Well, that may be in US but pal is in UK.
In Latin America, if they have the test, it ain’t less than 300 USD. If.
I was talking about taking the test before coming here. In Taiwan, we are spoiled rotten when it comes to medical costs.
They should at least provide the test at the airport for all, even if self paid. The whole thing of requiring the test before boarding and the within the specifications they want is not reasonable. We are talking about citizens and permanent residents, not some random visitors.
I want all commercial airlines refuse passengers without negative test results.
I agree with you. But its also worrying that there are so many imported cases lately. at what point will hospitals be overwhelmed? I totally understand the living abroad and wanting to be home for December holidays. I wish I could go to the US to see my mom for Christmas, so I’m in the same position. But I’m not going to go because a)of the quarantine on return to Taiwan and b)the risk of getting covid either on a plane or in the USA and c)the risk of unwittingly bringing the virus to my mother.
Agree!
I don’t think the test in Taiwan is particularly cheap. Isn’t it like NT$7k minimum (US$245) and sometimes more? It seems a fair bit higher than the prices I’ve heard from other countries, and quite a lot higher compared to most medical tests in Taiwan even paying out of pocket.
I don’t know whether Taiwan imports its test kits from somewhere and this is just the market price or if they’re manufactured in Taiwan and someone is making a lot of money, but NT$7k seems like quite a lot to me for a simple PCR test using tiny amounts of a few reagents and enzymes in one well of a 96-well plate.
Rapid test results are currently not very accurate at all.
Not helpful, thank you!
Guy
I think you live in a different Taiwan.
If you think strict means letting kids stay up until after midnight and having them run around and scream without paying attention them is strict, well my strict is quite different.
I also don’t understand. Are you suggesting kids in Taiwan have always behaved like that? I thought they used to be more disciplined and it’s only relatively recently that some parents have started to let them run amock.
I have a question for a different topic: the kids now are raised by teachers and the buxiban and grandma if they are lucky.
In the past parents were working even longer hours…which is why they expect people now to work longer than them.
Everyone is racing with testing and buxiban and spending 100k in English lessons a year and 3 million in master’s abroad…for colleges that have less and less students each year and jobs that pay 33k tops. But should pay 20k, as per college administrators.
And we expect logic and discipline and everything is fine from this picture?
In that case then don’t require a 3 day PCR test result. It is impossible to get them. Need a minimum of 5 business days in most countries.
If they continue to avoid Covid kicking off over the winter period and we avoid a lockdown, I’ll do anything they ask of me.
But the usefulness of doing the test at all rapidly decreases the longer before travel the cutoff point is. The 3 working days seems to be quite standard among those countries and airlines requiring tests, which would presumably eventually create demand for faster tests. And I don’t think there’s any real technological limitation (although maybe some logistical ones) preventing shorter turnaround times, as long as enough money is thrown at it for the sample processing to be automated in centralized facilities (e.g., hospitals and airports).
I lived in the south quite a few years ago in the countryside and those ‘love little hand’ beating sticks weren’t for decoration. I haven’t seen anyone these days, even in the south, even reprimand their kids for screaming and running around public places.
As to the main topic, the specifications of the test should be simple, name and dob. But letting people test in Taiwan is still ripe for abuse because the people getting on while they are sick want to be identified as sick in Taiwan anyway, and they will still be on the plane infecting others.
Six more imported cases reported today—four from Indonesia, one from the Philippines, and one Taiwanese student returning from (fleeing?) the US:
Guy