I will be arriving in Taiwan in a few days, after spending 72 hours in Singapore. I’m actually landing there soon.
I’ll be in Taiwan to learn Mandarin. I have received an email today that all those that come from Singapore (transiting and I assume leaving from there), will undergo self quarantine.
I’m unclear on what this means though. Does this mean I stay in my hotel room and I can’t get out of the house? Can someone give an idiot-proof explanation of what self quarantine and home quarantine means?
I was also planning on staying in a hostel for one night, and then renting an apartment, as I found a few. Now that I can only show up on campus after 14 days (and they’d help rent for me), I guess a private hotel room is my only option?
I have so many questions about the current rules and I’d appreciate anyone taking the time to help me.
You might want to use the search function at the top, as I think there have been a few threads on this recently. Do travellers from Singapore currently need to do quarantine though? I thought not, but I could be wrong.
If they do, I wouldn’t personally be flying here at the moment. Too much hassle/expense to be stuck in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city for two weeks with no way to get food etc. I’d probably book the next cheap flight out to Thailand or KL and wait it out there (and hope that they don’t get included in the meantime).
Click click the green button at the top of the page to change between Chinese and English.
Note: this could change at any moment so you have to continue checking the CDC press release bulletins.
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PublishTime：2020-02-24
The Central Epidemic Command Center has raised the travel notice level for certain countries, and details are as follows: Travel notice level 1: Thailand, Italy and Iran Travel notice level 2: Singapore and Japan
Starting February 24, 2020, travelers arriving in Taiwan from these countries must conduct self-health management for 14 days.
Instructions for conducting self-health management are as follows:
Please keep your hands clean. You should wash your hands with soap or alcohol-based hand sanitizers frequently. In addition, please refrain from touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands. If your hands touch any secretions from your respiratory tract, please wash your hands with soap and water thoroughly.
During the 14-day self-health management, please record your temperature and daily activities twice a day (morning and evening) correctly in the table below.
During the period, if you have no symptoms, please still avoid going to public places. When you go outside, please ensure that you wear a surgical mask as required.
If you have any symptoms, such as fever or other respiratory symptoms, please make sure to wear a surgical mask and notify the local health authority to help you seek medical attention. When you seek medical attention, please show this notice to your physician, and inform the physician of your contact history, travel history, residence history, occupational exposure, and whether anyone else has similar symptoms.
During illness, please rest at home, wear a surgical mask and avoid going outside. If your mask is contaminated by secretions of nose or mouth, please fold it and throw it into the trash immediately.
During illness, please wear a surgical mask and keep at least 1 meter away from others while talking to them.
Go home. Then go to dance halls, KTV, morning markets, Mazu festivals, if there are any secretive cults you were considering joining then this is the time to sign up too.
The post you’re replying to was from February. A lot has changed since then.
All people who come to Taiwan are, at a minimum, required to quarantine for 14 days. You must stay in quarantine-acceptable accommodations (basically your own home or a government-approved quarantine hotel) and cannot go out.
So no, you cannot attend language school during quarantine. You can’t visit your friends (or have your friends come visit you) during quarantine. You can’t go to Starbucks during quarantine. Etc. etc.
You stay in your apartment or hotel room and you wait.
Thanks for your quick reply and sorry for the misunderstanding. Of course I passed the 15 days of mandatory quarantine, but on the day of checkout they send you an SMS stating that for seven more days you have to follow basically all the measures which are explained in the post above.
This was quite confusing to me, because on Youtube you see a lot of people taking the MRT right after their 15 days of quarantine or even doing party in some club. So I found this pretty contradictory to “avoiding public places”. But I just received a confirmation from my language school that as long as I wear a mask all the time, attending is no issue.
The “toll-free hotline” on the other hand was not really of great help. Waited there for ages in the line to ask what these rules exactly mean with nobody taking the call…
Yes, a lot changed since then. Back then, obligatory quarantine was only if you came from high-risk countries. Safe countries got the self-health management. Now it seems everyone has to go through the two weeks quarantine.
I remember those days. There was a real tension in the air. People were scared and anxious. Even if Taiwan had few cases, there was a real fear of COVID-19. I remember in March I was at a McDonalds, in the bathroom, and someone asked me if I come from a safe country.
I’m grateful to be in Taiwan while this COVID-19 pandemic plays out. It was a struck of luck to be here just in time.
Yes, I’m talking about the self-health management period. What I mean is that it is unfortunate that they tell you about this with a vague message on the 15th day, i.e. on the day of checkout from the quarantine hotel. The document they link in that message reads a bit different from what you linked for business travellers, but still: Always wearing a mask in public and avoiding public places means not going to restaurants and cafés (because you would have to take off your mask to eat and drink), not taking the MRT (because it’s a public place) etc.
Since I was kept believing for 15 days that all restrictions would end after 15 days, I had a lot of stress rearranging or at least scrutinizing my plans (apartment hunting, business preparation, language school attendance) which could have been avoided if the rules had been told directly at the airport or earlier (on the airport they simply say “you can leave after 15 days”).
What’s also strange: At the airport they sell by default a SIM card that is valid for 2 weeks. I thought it might be more practical to have one for 4 weeks and they asked to reassure if I really wanted to have one for so long, since I would not be able to top up that specific card. Now I realize that the “self-health management” notice is sent on the 15th day (when a 2-week card would already have been expired) and even now on day 20 I’m receiving daily messages and calls that check if I’m healthy. I wonder what would have happened if I had purchased a SIM card that was only valid for 2 weeks…