The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said 146 people among 524 travelers from China, or 27.8 percent, tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival on Saturday.
A temporary testing requirement for all travelers from China was launched on Saturday and the 524 passengers arrived in Taiwan on five direct flights from China.
After undergoing a saliva polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, they were allowed to return home and practice self-disease prevention while waiting for the test results.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Asked to comment on the test results, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is CECC spokesperson, said the policy had only been imposed for one day and that Taiwan has not allowed Chinese tourists to arrive yet, so it is difficult to determine whether the positivity rate is high or low.
The CECC would select virus samples from the positive cases with a lower cycle threshold value in the PCR test for genome sequencing to identify the virus strains, and it would take about three days for the results to come back, he said, adding that about 20 samples would be selected each day.
About 826 travelers from China were expected to arrive in Taiwan yesterday, he added.
Infectious Diseases Society of Taiwan honorary chairman Huang Li-min (黃立民) said the positivity rate of 27.8 percent indicates that the COVID-19 positivity rate in China is likely very high, and that only selecting 20 samples — about one-seventh of the positive cases — for sequencing is too few and might not detect potential new variants.
He suggested that the CECC conduct genome sequencing on more samples in the initial stage of the testing program, adding that it could reduce the number of samples if no new strain had been detected.
The CECC yesterday also reported 16,524 new local infections — a 16.7 percent increase compared with the previous week — and 26 deaths.
Of the 26 deaths, 12 people were unvaccinated and 13 people were aged 80 or older, while 18 had cancer or other underlying health conditions.
The youngest death was an eight-year-old boy, who did not have a record of underlying health conditions and had received two vaccine shots, in May and June.
The CECC said the boy developed a fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, chills and fatigue on Dec. 25, and he was suffering from convulsions and altered state of consciousness when he was rushed to a hospital the next day, where he tested positive.
The boy was admitted to an intensive care unit, put on a ventilator and given medication, but he died of acute encephalitis and multiple organ failure on Thursday last week, it said.
Additional reporting by Lin Hui-chin
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