The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is investigating a potential COVID-19 cluster at a quarantine hotel in Kaohsiung, where four guests staying on the same floor were confirmed to have the virus between Sunday and yesterday, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.
The Kaohsiung City Government has sent people quarantining at the hotel to government-run facilities, Chen said, adding that all guests who stayed at the hotel from Jan. 19 would undergo additional testing.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that one of the cases stayed in room 318 after returning to Taiwan from China on Jan 20.
Photo: CNA
After his quarantine, the man returned home to New Taipei City on Tuesday last week, where he was tested for COVID-19 on Monday after experiencing an itchy throat the previous day, Chen Chi-mai said.
Before his test came back positive on Tuesday, he had already visited multiple places in Kaohsiung, Chen Chi-mai said, adding that the Kaohsiung Department of Health fined him for breaching self-health management rules.
Three others who quarantined on the same floor also tested positive, the city government said.
Photo courtesy of the CECC
One of them started their quarantine on Jan. 19 in room 317, after arriving from Vietnam, it said, adding that the person developed symptoms on Friday last week and tested positive a day later.
Another entered their quarantine on Thursday last week in room 318, after arriving from Hong Kong, it said, adding that the person developed symptoms on Tuesday and tested positive on Thursday.
Based on their cycle threshold values and the time they started to report symptoms, the New Taipei City man was likely infected by one of the two cases on or around Jan. 20, Chen Chi-mai said, adding that gene sequencing results are pending.
The hotel was inspected in December and last month, with no major issues reported, he said, adding that the man might have caught the virus through environmental contamination.
The hotel has been pre-emptively shut down, he added.
Taiwan yesterday reported 25 local COVID-19 cases, including 12 in Kaohsiung, which made it one of the nation’s two hot spots, the CECC said.
Seventeen of the local cases were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and the vaccination status of four cases is under investigation, the CECC said, adding that the remaining cases are younger than five.
Of the 12 Kaohsiung cases, nine are linked to a cluster in Kaohsiung Harbor and three are linked to a kindergarten, Chen Shih-chung said.
The kindergarten cluster is linked to a hotel cluster in Yilan County, he said, citing genome sequencing results ruling out links to the harbor cluster.
Taiwan also reported 46 imported cases — arrivals from Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.
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
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
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
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
RSS