TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers at tech factories have taught the country a hard lesson, said Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Saturday (June 19).

In an inspection visit to tech companies in Miaoli, the latest epicenter of the cluster woes, Su noted that the country must learn from the cluster infections that have threatened to disrupt the supply chains of electronics and semiconductor manufacturers.

June 19 marked the 16th day since a command post was set up in Miaoli after the first outbreak at a chip-processing factory was reported. The outbreak has involved eight tech companies, including King Yuan Electronics, the eighth-largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) vendor by revenue.

Su stressed the loophole has shed light on the poor management of migrant workers. Regardless of nationality, all workers should be treated as important and their workplace and living conditions should be taken into consideration when epidemic prevention guidelines are designed, he reckoned.

Meanwhile, he said it was the right move to implement quarantine measures for the affected factories based on risk levels immediately at the onset of the outbreak. The measures have managed to prevent COVID infections from spilling over to communities.

All the King Yuan Electronics' migrant laborers were placed on paid leave, and thousands underwent rigorous coronavirus testing. As of June 18, a total of 123 out of 1,405 migrant workers deemed as the high-risk group had tested positive in a massive PCR screening initiative, yielding a positive rate of 8.8 percent.

Isolating the patients and cutting off the transmission chain in the dorms have played significant roles in containing the outbreak in the county, according to CECC official Wang Pi-sheng (王必勝), chief of the command post.