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.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS