The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 13 locally transmitted infections, 10 imported COVID-19 cases and one death.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that following two consecutive days of no local infections, 13 new cases were confirmed, including nine people who tested positive during isolation.
Eleven cases were reported in New Taipei City and two in Taipei, he said.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Ten of the cases in New Taipei City are family members who live in the same household in Sansia District (三峽), and the other is a worker at the Mega City (大遠百) shopping mall in Banciao District (板橋), Chen said, adding that expanded testing is being conducted among mall employees.
The infection sources of nine people in the family cluster have been found, while contact tracing continued to identify the infection sources of the remaining four cases, he added.
The first case in the family cluster is a man who had been hospitalized from the middle of June to early last month, Chen said.
Photo courtesy of Central Epidemic Command Center
The man tested negative at the time, but was tested again before a recent examination at a hospital. After the man tested positive, his family members were placed under isolation, he said.
Only one member of the family, a child, did not test positive for COVID-19, Chen said, adding that the infected family members are aged two to older than 50.
The one death that was confirmed yesterday was a cargo ship captain, whose case was reported last week, Chen said.
The 10 imported cases came from China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Vietnam and the US, he said.
Six of them had received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and the other four were fully vaccinated, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division.
Of the four, one had received three doses of the Chinese-made ZF2001 vaccine, an adjuvanted protein subunit vaccine; one had received two doses of the Chinese-made Sinovac (科興生物) vaccine; one had received US firm Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Janssen vaccine; and one had received two doses of the Indian-made Covaxin vaccine.
Chen also provided an update about a breakthrough infection reported on Saturday — a pilot at a Taiwanese airline who had received two doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Twenty-one close contacts of the pilot have tested negative, while two are awaiting test results and five are to be tested, Chen said.
The center suspects there might be loopholes in the implementation of the procedures to protect flight crews from COVID-19 infection during overseas flights, he said.
The procedures would be reviewed, Chen said, adding that quarantine rules for flight crew members would likely be tightened.
Meanwhile, a shipment of 30,000 Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by the Czech Republic arrived in Taiwan yesterday afternoon.
“We are very grateful for the donation... When many countries around the world are facing vaccine shortages, the Czech Republic is still willing to express its friendship, which is very helpful to the people of Taiwan,” Chen said.
Chen and the other CECC officials at the daily news briefing wore masks that bore the message “Thank you Cesko,” and the national flags of Taiwan and the Czech Republic.
In related news, more than 1.97 million people had added the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to their preferred vaccine brands three hours after registration opened on the national online COVID-19 vaccination system at 2pm on Saturday.
The number had increased to 2.88 million people as of 2pm yesterday, the center said.
The nation’s first-dose vaccination coverage rate reached 42.55 percent on Saturday, it added.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant