The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 321 new local COVID-19 infections and two deaths, while an additional 400 cases that had been delayed in reporting have been added to the daily confirmed cases reported from Sunday last week to Friday.
Two imported cases were also confirmed yesterday, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.
The 400 delayed cases have been added to the previously reported cases following “regression calibration,” he said.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
Of the 321 new cases, 162 are male and 159 are female, with the onset of symptoms or testing dates ranging from Monday last week to Friday, he said.
Of the 400 delayed cases, 185 are male and 215 are female, with the onset of symptoms or testing dates ranging from May 7 to Thursday, he added.
Among the total 721 cases reported yesterday, 384 live in New Taipei City — 103 of them in Banciao District (板橋) — and 268 live in Taipei, including 174 in Wanhua District (萬華), accounting for the vast majority of cases, while the remainder live in 14 other municipalities, Chen said.
Contact tracing found that 258 of them had recently visited Wanhua, 100 are linked to a teahouse cluster in the district, four are linked to a social club cluster and three are linked to a fruit vendor cluster, he said.
Eighty had clear infection sources, 121 had unknown association with previous cases and 155 were under investigation, he added.
“As the numbers of daily conducted COVID-19 tests surged last week, a ‘traffic congestion’ problem has occurred, so we worked on simplifying the confirmed case reporting procedure to improve reporting efficiency and the accuracy of judging the daily COVID-19 situation,” Chen said.
After simplifying the procedure by reducing the 22 required items to only eight for each case, more than 14,000 delayed test results were analyzed and cleared on Friday, and 400 infections were confirmed, he said.
After the correction, the daily reported cases would be 245 for Sunday last week, 406 for Monday, 325 for Tuesday, 359 for Wednesday, 360 for Thursday and 349 for Friday, CECC data showed.
The corrected data showed new infections peaked on Monday.
The center integrated the cases with past infections instead of reporting them as newly confirmed cases to gain a better understanding of the actual daily COVID-19 situation and to implement suitable response measures, Chen said.
One of the COVID-19 deaths is a man in his 80s who had on Wednesday evening developed a cough, a fever, difficulty breathing and general fatigue.
He died on Thursday after being hospitalized and his COVID-19 test came back positive on Friday, Chen said.
The other death is a man in his 70s who was under home isolation since Tuesday as a close contact of a confirmed case, he said.
Although he did not report having any symptoms during isolation, he was found without a heartbeat by his family on Friday and doctors later pronounced him dead, Chen said, adding that his test came back positive yesterday.
The two imported cases are travelers from the Philippines and the UK, Chen said.
Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Minister Jay Shih (施能傑) said central government agencies in Taipei and New Taipei City should increase the percentage of staff working from home from one-third to half to help contain the outbreak.
However, the rule does not apply to essential workers, including military personnel, police officers, medical workers and other frontline personnel, he said.
Government officials working from home should comply with the information security rules, he added.
Government agencies should strictly implement access controls and refuse unnecessary visitors, while people with symptoms should not go to work and should immediately seek medical attention.
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