The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 185 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 180 locally transmitted cases and five imported cases.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the 180 local infections included 58 men and 112 women, aged from under five years old to older than 80, and the onset of symptoms occurred between April 23 and Friday.
The confirmed cases include 89 residents of Taipei, 75 residents of New Taipei City, six from Changhua County, four in Yilan County and Taoyuan, and one each in Taichung and Keelung, he said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Among the cases in Taipei, 43 were in Wanhua District (萬華), he added.
As cluster infections, involving dozens of cases, were confirmed in Wanhua, New Taipei City’s Lujhou District (蘆洲) and Yilan County in the past week, and most cases reported yesterday were in Taipei and New Taipei City, Chen said that the center would raise the COVID-19 alert to level 3 in the cities.
Due to the “unique characteristics” of businesses in Wanhua, many infected cases were unwilling to reveal their contacts and whereabouts, he said.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy chief of the CECC’s medical response division, said that genome sequencing on confirmed cases shows that several in the clustered infections might be linked to an earlier cluster infection among China Airlines Ltd (中華航空) crew members and its quarantine hotel, Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport.
Seventeen cases in the airline and hotel cluster, 10 associated with social club members at Lujhou, four associated with tea houses in Wanhua and a case at a gambling house in Yilan County were all infected by the same strain of the UK variant, he said.
Chen said that enhanced disease prevention measures would be implemented nationwide along with tightened restrictions in Taipei and New Taipei City, effective immediately until May 28.
Asked if travel restrictions or lockdowns might be implemented, he said that travel restrictions could be introduced if “an average of 100 confirmed cases are reported for 14 consecutive days,” when a level 4 alert will be issued.
Medical response measures in Taipei and New Taipei City are to be bolstered immediately, including by expanding designated COVID-19 wards, separating healthcare practitioners and patients to avoid cross infection, and expanding testing capacity, Chen said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS