A small cluster of COVID-19 infections involving EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) pilots is under control, while a cluster linked to a preschool has likely run its course, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
No new cases have been linked to the EVA Airways cluster since two pilots were reported to have the disease on Sept. 3 and the son of one of them was reported as being infected the following day, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.
A total of 519 people who were listed as contacts of the three were quarantined for 14 days and tested negative for COVID-19, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
Chen said it was “case closed” for the small cluster of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration on Friday said it had fined the pilot who was found to have spread the disease to his son NT$400,000 (US$14,422).
He was also dismissed from the airline for contravening quarantine protocols.
EVA Airways was fined NT$12 million for its failure to supervise the pilot, the agency added.
Regarding the Delta variant cluster at a preschool and apartment complex in New Taipei City, Chen said it would be clear today if the spread of the disease had run its course.
From Sept. 5 to Thursday, 33 cases were linked to a preschool in the city’s Banciao District (板橋) and a residential building where one of the cases lived, the CECC said.
The cases included 10 children and two staff members from the preschool, as well as relatives, neighbors and people who came into contact with them, it said.
Among the 3,600 people listed as contacts, 3,472 tested negative for COVID-19, while 2,638 people have been quarantined, Chen said.
Once the test results of the last batch of 100 contacts come back today, the CECC would be able to determine whether the cluster was under control, he said.
The clusters were not linked, as the groups contracted genetically distinct versions of the Delta variant, Chen said.
Initial genome sequencing also found that an airplane cabin cleaner at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was not infected with the same Delta variant identified in either clusters, he said.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that health authorities have identified the aircraft the cleaner worked on, which carried one or two imported cases of COVID-19 from the Middle East earlier this month.
While no new local cases were reported, Chen said that the public should remain vigilant during the four-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, which began yesterday.
The CECC reported six new imported COVID-19 cases. They are two Taiwanese returning from the Philippines, and three Indonesians and one Bangladeshi traveling from their respective countries.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS