Taiwan to quarantine 700 navy sailors amid coronavirus pandemic

The three confirmed cases had all shared quarters on the same ship, but all 700 sailors on all three ships were being re-called and would be put into quarantine, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said.

Taiwan will put 700 navy sailors into quarantine after three cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed among sailors who had been on a goodwill mission to the Pacific island state of Palau, the government said on Saturday.

Three Taiwan navy vessels visited Palau - one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan - in the middle of March, before returning to Taiwan a month later, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters. (AP file photo. Representative image)

Three Taiwan navy vessels visited Palau - one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan - in the middle of March, before returning to Taiwan a month later, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters.

The three confirmed cases had all shared quarters on the same ship, but all 700 sailors on all three ships were being re-called and would be put into quarantine, he said.

Taiwan’s presidential office said that President Tsai Ing-wen had been at the ceremony to welcome back the ships but had only waved to the sailors from the shore and had not been exposed to the risk of infection.

These are the first coronavirus cases reported in Taiwan’s military. The navy was carrying out a deep clean of the three ships to disinfect them.

The president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that his country of 20,000 people had not had a single case of the coronavirus and he was going to shut it off from the outside world to keep the virus out.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard Editing by Robert Birsel)