'Not a God': Taiwan defends health minister as country sees fresh COVID-19 outbreak

Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang on Monday lambasted the local Taiwanese reporters saying that the island’s Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-Chung is “not a god” as Taiwan registered 8 new cases of the novel coronavirus. At a regular COVID-19 briefing, the Taiwanese premier defended the health minister saying if he had reborn still he could not prevent the outbreak and every calamity that occurred within the island nation. Tseng-chang’s remarks came as Taiwan ramped up contact tracing and other containment measures due to new domestic COVID-19 cases related to a Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport quarantine hotel, according to the local media outlet Focus Taiwan. 

The minister of health Shih-Chung, who heads the island’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) task force told reporters that the recent cases were all linked to the China Airlines (CAL) that landed at Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport. The island updated its mandatory quarantine advisory from 14 days to 24 in order to curb community infections. All CAL pilots and flight crew members were ordered by the health minister to take a PCR test. As many as 700 diagnosed negative as the risk of spread loomed from among the 207 employees in the airport quarantine hotel. 

Criticized by opposition

A housekeeping manager at the airport hotel, a worker in the catering department, two workers in the housekeeping department, and at least 3 family members of one of the housekeeping staff tested positive to the COVID-19 contributing to the fresh outbreak in Taiwan, which had largely controlled the pandemic during the first wave. The CECC identified over 100 people that came in contact with the hotel staff that tested positive. Taiwan’s health minister Shih-Chung was criticized by the opposition party Kuomintang for relaxing the COVID-19 protocols and allowing the overseas pilots to mix with Taiwanese pilots during the hotel quarantine. 

Premier Su Tseng-chang, however, defended the island's health minister saying that he was giving his best and yet did not have godly powers to prevent an outbreak. The health minister had earlier told UK’s telegraph that he believed that the pandemic “is serious”, adding that in Taiwan there were things the government did right and things it did wrong. Taiwan had activated the Communicable Disease Control Act last year to take a legal route to enforce the quarantine measures and health safety protocols for the citizens.