Taiwan cannot afford to relax measures to halt the spread of COVID-19 now, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday, as he reported 262 locally transmitted cases, 65 backlogged cases and 13 deaths.
Of the 262 local infections, 136 are male and 126 are female. They began experiencing symptoms between May 20 and Monday, said Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center.
The 65 backlogged cases comprised 31 males and 34 females who began showing symptoms between May 20 and Sunday, he added.
Photo copied by Chen En-hui, Taipei Times
Among the 327 cases reported yesterday, New Taipei City had 166 cases, followed by Taipei with 87, Taoyuan with 23, Changhua County with 12, Taichung with 10, Keelung with eight, Yilan County with five, Chiayi County with four, and seven other cities or counties with one to three cases each.
Aside from the 253 cases who live in Taipei or New Taipei City, the 74 cases in other areas include one who had visited Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) recently, 55 with identified infection sources, and 18 with an unclear link to previous cases, Chen said.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is the deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that among the 7,431 confirmed cases since April 20, there were 1,209 people, or 16.3 percent, who experienced severe symptoms, including serious pneumonia or acute respiratory distress.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Among the 2,849 cases aged 60 or older, 859 people, or 30.2 percent, suffered severe COVID-19 symptoms, Lo said.
Of the 13 deaths reported yesterday, 10 were men and three were women in their 60s to 90s who suffered symptoms between May 13 and Sunday, tested positive between May 17 and Saturday, and died between Monday last week and Monday.
They included a man and two women who had been hospitalized for other underlying health conditions, and were exposed to COVID-19 patients during hospitalization. They were diagnosed with the disease after more than one test.
GRAPHIC: TT
Another case is a man in his 60s who had a history of hypertension and diabetes who drowned on Monday last week, said CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC spokesman.
A COVID-19 test administered after his death came back positive on Friday last week, Chuang said.
If necessary, prosecutors or police investigating cases of unnatural death would collect a sample and send it to the CDC for COVID-19 testing, he added.
With the number of backlogged cases dropping to 74 yesterday, Chen said the CECC expects to clear out the remaining cases in the next two days and would no longer report backlogged figures.
Lo said there are 6,437 pending cases that are expected to be cleared in one or two days, and that most of them are negative test results, but they were not uploaded to the reporting system in time.
Chen on Monday reported that the effective reproduction number (Rt), or the projected number of people who contract the disease from an infected person, had fallen to 1.02, adding that if it continued to drop below one, the spread of the virus could be under control.
“This was the result of everyone constraining themselves in the past 14 days,” he said yesterday.
“The main goal at this time is to bring the COVID-19 situation under control, so we cannot be too optimistic, and we absolutely cannot afford to relax right now,” Chen said. “Everyone must continue to practice public health protocols and reduce the number of confirmed cases to bringing the virus under control.”
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS