The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday announced three new COVID-19 cases — two imported and one domestic — bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Taiwan to 379.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the domestic case, No. 379, is a woman in her 30s who sought treatment at a hospital for a fever and a runny nose on Saturday last week, and tested positive yesterday.
While the woman leads a relatively simple life and mainly remains at home, her husband in January traveled to Guangzhou, China, for work and she visited Southeast Asia in early February, Chen said, adding that 21 people who had direct contact with her have been identified and a further contact investigation is under way.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that the woman claimed that she usually stays at home and only walks to nearby shopping centers every day.
However, due to some difficulties in conducting the contact investigation, the local health department would need to access surveillance footage and other data sources to trace her activities and the possible source of infection, he said.
Case No. 377 is a woman in her 20s who studied in Spain and was placed in home quarantine after returning to Taiwan on March 22, Chen said.
She experienced a sore throat and diarrhea the next day, but took medicine on her own to relieve the symptoms, he said.
However, when the local government checked on her health on Saturday last week, she reported a persistent runny nose, nasal congestion, mild diarrhea, and chest and back pain, Chen said.
Her test result came back positive yesterday, he added.
Case No. 378 is a woman in her 60s who visited relatives in Indonesia between Feb. 16 and Sunday last week, when she was put in home quarantine, Chen said.
She began coughing on Wednesday last week and sought treatment for difficulty breathing, a fever, fatigue and pneumonia on Saturday last week, he said.
Ministry of Health and Welfare Department of Information Management Director Parng I-ming (龐一鳴) said that the center — with the help of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) DeepQ AI Platform and the Line messaging app — on Friday last week launched a chatbot on Line to provide information and care services to people in home quarantine, through which 9,843 people had reported their health conditions as of Tuesday.
While the number of imported cases has fallen over the past few days, the center is keeping an eye on whether there were any cluster infections that occurred during the four-day Tomb Sweeping Day weekend, Chen said, adding that the answer might be revealed as soon as Sunday.
Asked about a remark yesterday by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) that people should be allowed to buy 28 masks per month, Chen said that the maximum amount of adult masks people can buy is this week being increased to nine per 14 days, and that the government has stockpiled more than 267 million adult masks and more than 40 million children’s masks.
“Having one or even two masks per day would be nice, but I must reiterate that masks are disease prevention resources that should be used economically,” Chen said.
Taking a handwritten letter taped to a bag of masks of different sizes from his pocket, Chen said that he received the letter from a 10-year-old boy, who expressed his gratitude to the center for protecting everyone and wanted to give Chen the masks to protect him in the fight against COVID-19.
“It is moving to see a child so young who already knows to ration masks to help others,” he said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS