Covid tests at Taiwan airport

[Burundi Pavilion]

Hello.

Has anybody traveled recently out of Taiwan and back?

How is the mandatory PCR testing for Covid done at the airport in Taiwan, at arrival? Through nose swabs or can you get it done through the mouth?

Do they go deep with the nose swabs?

How long do you have to wait for the result?

Thank you for anybody who answers ~

[Teresa Jefferies]

My experience about the nose swabs (for airport and hospitals) is that they try to swab a bit of your brain while they’re at it.

[Aaron Rackstraw]

You can check the most recent information by the Taiwanese Government (website) themselves:

https://www.boca.gov.tw/cp-220-5081-c06dc-2.html

In summary, it says “A negative result from an at-home rapid test taken within two days should be presented if an arrival needs to go out to work or buy daily necessities.”

[Robert Hale]

I flew in to Taoyuan two weeks ago. I’ve heard some people were getting saliva tests at the end of the airport process (before going to the taxi stand), but for mine it was done at the beginning and it was a nose swab. Maybe they considered London higher risk, I dunno.

Immediately after getting off the plane we went into a waiting room where they called everyone on the flight by name, put a sticker with a number on our clothes, gave us the test kit, and then we queued for the station where they take the sample. The nose swab was fast and painless for me, I had worse ones in London.

They made everyone wait for the results which takes around an hour but could be longer. After that we continued on to SIM cards and immigration.

So maybe waiting 15-20 minutes for everyone to get off the plane, another 15 minutes to get all the samples, and then 1 hour for the results.

[Robert Hale]

I have added this chat to the COVID group:

https://taipeiexpats.com/groups/lets-fight-against-covid/

[Aaron Macalister]

You’d need to have to wait for your luggage to be disinfected (which in my case took around 50 minutes, last November) anyway, so the time waiting for the result doesn’t make a difference.

[Eric-Jackson]

Thank you for a very detailed response on this.

Do they go deep with the nose swabs?

[Robert Hale]

That’s actually a good point @amacalister, because of the covid test waiting I didn’t even notice whether my luggage needed time for disinfecting.

@Eric-Jackson yes, at least in my case. they went a bit deep but that part was super fast just in and out. Honestly I prefer this over them shoving a swab to the back of my throat and hitting my gag reflex.

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