More than 2 million arrivals in Jan. 2020, down to 200,000 in March

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/09
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic tightened its grip on the world, the number of arrivals and departures in Taiwan fell by more than 3 million during the first quarter of 2020 from the same period last year, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) said Saturday (May 9).

Figures for the month of March were even more dramatic, and close to data recorded during the height of the SARS epidemic in early 2003, CNA reported.

From January to March this year, 3,615,349 people arrived in Taiwan, while 3,552,631 took a flight out of the country. Those amounts stood at about half the level of the figures for the same period in 2019, when 7,043,653 arrivals and 7,152,826 departures were recorded.

For the month of Jan. 2020, both arrivals and departures were still rising compared to Jan. 2019 to 2.2 million and 2.3 million respectively, but during the month of February those figures fell by half, according to MOI data.    [FULL  STORY]