The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 26 new domestic cases of COVID-19, 22 of which are linked to previously reported clusters and four whose infection source is unknown.
Sixteen cases were reported in Taoyuan, six in Taipei and four in New Taipei City, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.
The 22 cases are all linked to recorded clusters and tested positive during quarantine, he added.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Regarding the Taoyuan cases, Chen said that seven are migrant workers of Askey Computer Corp (亞旭) in the Farglory Free Trade Zone (遠雄自由貿易港區).
On Sunday, they tested negative and were released from isolation, he said, adding that they had returned to their dormitory, but not yet to work.
On Monday, 2,147 people linked to the free trade zone were retested, with all but seven returning negative, so the surrounding firms should be considered safe, but the Askey dormitory would need to be reinspected, he said.
Six of the Taoyuan cases are linked to the Re-Yi Distribution Service Co (日翊物流) cluster; they are family members of previous cases and have been isolating at home.
The six were the only people out of 262 close contacts in isolation that tested positive, Chen said, adding that all 917 people placed in preventive isolation tested negative.
The three other Taoyuan cases are linked to a cluster associated with a Chien Tu Hot Pot (錢都日式涮涮鍋) restaurant and a preschool in Bade District (八德), he said.
Of the Taipei cases, four are linked to a cluster associated with a realtor; three of the four are preschool children and the other is a family member of an infected child, Chen said.
The two other Taipei cases are linked to an Yilan hotel cluster; they were customers at a restaurant where one of the infected hotel workers was dining, he said.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that the New Taipei City cases are a family of four — a father, mother and two daughters — who live in Banciao District (板橋).
The younger daughter, who is in her 20s, tested positive after showing symptoms, and the other family members, who have so far been asymptomatic, subsequently tested positive, Lo said.
More tests are needed to determine who in the family was infected first and how they contracted the disease, he added.
The elder daughter, who works at Deloitte & Touche Taiwan (勤業眾信), worked at the firm’s Xinyi District (信義) office from Friday to Monday before testing positive, a notice on the company’s Web site said.
Her close contacts at work are in quarantine and others who worked on the same floor are to be tested for COVID-19, the notice said.
The CECC yesterday also reported 22 imported cases: nine who tested positive upon arrival at the airport and 13 who tested positive in quarantine.
Asked about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s (VICP) decision to grant COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation to three cases, CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), head of the CECC’s disease surveillance division, said that one person had itchy skin after receiving the Medigen vaccine and was awarded NT$5,000.
Another person was awarded NT$70,000 after experiencing myocarditis within 28 days of receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, as a link to the vaccine could not be eliminated, said CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman.
The next of kin of the third were awarded NT$300,000 after the person had chest pain, soreness and difficulty breathing one day after receiving the Moderna vaccine, and died of acute myocardial infarction and aortic dissection, he said.
The possibility of a link to the vaccine could not be eliminated, so the compensation was granted, he added.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS