Five cases of COVID-19 were confirmed yesterday, all imported: four Taiwanese who had been passengers on the Coral Princess cruise ship and a Taiwanese who returned from the US, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said case No. 393 is a woman in her 60s who returned to Taiwan on Sunday and reported that she began coughing up phlegm on March 29 and developed diarrhea on April 1.
The woman, who was immediately transported from the airport to a hospital for testing, is the wife of Case No. 384, a man in his 70s who returned from the US on Friday and tested positive on Saturday, Chen said.
Photo courtesy of Central Epidemic Command Center
After the man tested positive, a family member told the CECC that his wife was planning to return, so the CECC informed the National Immigration Agency on Sunday, and discovered that she was already on a flight to Taiwan, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said.
The couple told officials that they had not been in contact with one another since late February, but that both had direct contact with an infected person at their workplace, Chuang said.
The woman wore a mask throughout the flight, but for safety’s sake, 12 flight attendants and seven passengers who were seated in the same row as the woman or two rows in front and behind her have been placed in mandatory 14-day home isolation.
Chen said the other four cases — Nos. 389 to 392 — were part of a group of seven friends and family who had traveled on their own to the US, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile, starting on Feb. 12, and on March 5 had boarded the Coral Princess in Chile.
They were stuck onboard after Argentina and other nations refused to let the ship dock, but were able to disembark on April 4 when the vessel was allowed to dock in Miami, Florida, he said.
The CECC was notified on Tuesday last week by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that seven Taiwanese had been aboard the vessel, he said.
They flew back to Taiwan via the UK on Saturday, and had been asked to wear a mask throughout the flight and had been separated from other passengers, he added.
All seven were tested upon arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport before being taken to a quarantine center, and four tested positive yesterday and have been taken to hospitals, while the others remained in quarantine, Chen said.
As of Sunday, of the 388 confirmed cases in Taiwan, 205 (52.8 percent) were female and 183 (47.2 percent) were male, and they ranged in age from four to 88, with a median age of 32.5, said Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳), convener of the CECC’s advisory specialist panel.
There have been six deaths so far, while 114 patients have been removed from isolation, and 12 people are on ventilators in intensive care units, he said.
A majority of the COVID-19 patients, 278, or 71.6 percent, have experienced mild symptoms, while 81 (20.9 percent) developed mild pneumonia and 29 (7.5 percent) developed serious pneumonia or respiratory failure, he said.
Chang said 22 cases (5.7 percent) were asymptomatic when tested, mostly family members of confirmed cases, but some developed symptoms after they were placed in isolation for treatment.
Meanwhile, amid concerns by some legislators that the government might have been secretly stockpiling requisitioned masks and not releasing them to the public, Chen showed reporters a chart detailing mask distribution from Jan. 31 to Saturday.
A total of 668.73 million masks were requisitioned, and 607.66 million were distributed — 349.52 million for purchase with National Health Insurance cards, 127.08 million to healthcare facilities, 28.36 million to central government agencies, 33.2 million to local government agencies, 21.5 million to schools and for national exams, and 48 million to industries.
Another 40.07 million masks, including 25.04 million adult ones and 15.03 million for children, are in stock at post offices nationwide, and 21 million masks are being kept as a backup reserve at the CDC, the minister said.
Chen said the requisition of domestically produced masks and surgical masks, which was scheduled to end on April 30, has been extended until the end of June.
The CECC might also consider a flexible policy for the requisition or export of N95 respirators and protective clothing, allowing manufacturing companies to sell a small proportion, such as 10 percent, of their products to other nations after the demand in Taiwan is secured, he said.
This could be an incentive to boost their efficiency, he said.
Amid complaints from parents that their sons are refusing to wear pink masks to school for fear of being ridiculed by classmates, all the CECC officials taking part in yesterday’s news conference — all men — wore pink masks.
People should wear masks of any color, Chen said, adding that he liked the Pink Panther when he was young, and pink is a good color for boys or girls.
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