A wide-scale COVID-19 screening program would be conducted in Keelung, offering government-funded at-home rapid test kits to 360,000 local residents in light of a cluster that has expanded to 68 cases, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
The virus seems to have been spreading in communities in Keelung for quite some time and it would be difficult to find undetected cases at testing stations, Chen said during a visit to Keelung.
The details of the screening program, including the method to distribute and collect the kits, are still being discussed, said Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
Photo: Lu Hsien-hsiu, Taipei Times
The CECC yesterday reported 56 local COVID-19 infections.
There are 19 local transmission chains with unknown infection sources, it said, adding that the cluster in Keelung is the most concerning, as it involves several businesses and a school.
The Keelung cluster added 19 new cases yesterday, Chen said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
It does not seem to be coming under control, so it must be closely monitored, he said.
A cluster involving workers at a chemical plant in Kaohsiung seems to be under control, as no new cases have been found in the past three days other than people who were already isolating at home, including one case confirmed yesterday — a family member of a previous case, Chen said.
Two local cases yesterday were linked to a cluster of infections in Taitung, he said.
Photo: CNA
They are a colleague of a previous case and a participant at a religious event that another previous case attended, he said.
The Taitung cluster has expanded to 11 cases, Chen said.
Six local cases were yesterday linked to a cluster involving workers at a technology firm in New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林), with four among them — three workers and a family member of a previous case — testing positive while isolating, while the other two workers had symptoms when under self-health management, he said.
The Shulin cluster has expanded to 29 cases, he said.
Genome sequencing showed that three cases in the Shulin cluster were infected with a new strain of the Omicron BA.2.3 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2, Chen said.
Six new cases were confirmed in a cluster involving residents of an apartment building in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和), Chen said.
They were: Two family members, two people at a clinic that previous cases had visited, a student at a cram school attended by a previous case and a person who visited the same place as a previous case, Chen said.
Twelve of yesterday’s new cases are linked to a cluster involving workers at a power plant construction site in Taoyuan and its dormitories in Hsinchu County, he said, adding that one of the cases is concerning, as he is a worker at a separate, larger construction site, so expanded testing is being conducted.
The Taoyuan cluster has expanded to 78 cases, he said.
A new case is linked to a cluster involving a salesperson in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重), with genome sequencing showing that the woman is infected with the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, the 23rd Omicron strain detected in Taiwan, Chen said.
Another case is a family member of a case in a Taipei cluster linked to a care worker and her employer, he said.
Other cases were: a resident of New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) who works at a massage parlor in Taipei; a police officer who works at a centralized quarantine facility in New Taipei City; two dance instructors in Taoyuan who taught classes in Taipei and Yilan; two Taipei residents and a Keelung resident who works in Kaohsiung who attended a wedding in Taichung; and a case reported in New Taipei City yesterday morning, Chen said.
The CECC yesterday also confirmed 107 imported cases.
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
CAUTION URGED: Xiaohongshu and Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — are tools the Chinese government uses for its ‘united front’ propaganda, the MAC said Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) yesterday urged people who use Chinese social media platforms to be cautious of being influenced by Beijing’s “united front” propaganda and undermining Taiwan’s sovereignty. Chiu made the remarks in response to queries about Chinese academic Zhang Weiwei (張維為) saying that as young Taiwanese are fond of interacting on Chinese app Xiaohongshu (小紅書, known as RedNote in English), “after unification with China, it would be easier to govern Taiwan than Hong Kong.” Zhang is professor of international relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University and director of its China Institute. When giving a speech at China’s Wuhan