Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday called on the public to “stay vigilant and prudent,” but added that there is “no need to be afraid” given a surge in domestic cases of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported 82 new local infections, a high for this year.
“The Omicron variant spreads very fast, so all of a sudden, most of the cases reported around the world are Omicron cases,” Su said during a visit to the CECC yesterday. “Its rapid spread is the variant’s characteristic, but most infected people have mild symptoms, or even no symptoms, which is also the case in Taiwan.”
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan via CNA
“We urge everyone to stay vigilant and prudent, but there is no need to be afraid,” he said.
While the government is doing its best to slow down the spread of the Omicron variant, Su said that people should know that scientific evidence suggests that vaccines boost protection against COVID-19 and reduce the symptoms of those who become infected.
Su urged those who are not fully vaccinated or are eligible for a booster shot to make an appointment as soon as possible so that they can increase protection for themselves, their families and society as a whole.
Photo: CNA
On Friday, Su said that while the government is doing its best to achieve “zero COVID” conditions, it does not exclude the possibility that Taiwan might have learn to “live with COVID-19.”
Separartely, former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), a public health specialist, wrote on Facebook: “We shouldn’t be afraid of living with the virus, and we must speed up in increasing full vaccination coverage.”
Before vaccines and antiviral drugs were developed, people could only rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions to keep the virus from spreading in communities, as the fatality rate of the disease was also higher, Chen said, adding that “zero COVID” was initially the goal.
As Omicron is more transmissible, but produces milder symptoms or no symptoms, getting vaccinated can induce the body’s humoral and cell-mediated immune responses, and increase protection from infection, severe illness, hospitalization or death, he said.
It is difficult for the world to eliminate such highly transmissible variants, so a “zero COVID” approach is impractical and people should be prepared to “live with” the virus, he said.
Rapid tests, vaccines and oral antivirals have been developed, and the goal for this phase of prevention should be arriving more rapidly at full vaccination coverage, he added.
In related news, Taiwan has purchased up to 10,000 courses of molnupiravir, an oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 developed by US drugmaker Merck & Co.
While the CECC had said that the drugs would at the earliest arrive after the Lunar New Year holiday, sources yesterday said that the first delivery could arrive this morning.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said only that the center is keeping in close touch with the manufactuer regarding the matter.
Additional reporting by Lo Chi
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS