The Taipei City Government yesterday rejected a rumor that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has contracted COVID-19.
Online rumors saying that Ko had contracted the virus and was in quarantine along with others who he had close contact with began spreading after the mayor canceled his attendance on Sunday afternoon at a news conference at the opening of an exhibition of veteran entertainer Betty Pai’s (白嘉莉) paintings.
Taipei City Government deputy spokeswoman Huang Ching-yin said that Ko had not been feeling well for two days, but he had not contracted COVID-19 and was not hospitalized.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Ko was at Taipei City Hall to conduct the morning administrative meeting at 7:30am as usual yesterday, she said, adding that he canceled his Sunday plans because he had diarrhea and suspected he had a norovirus.
Ko said that his detractors and Chinese trolls had posted misleading remarks and spread a rumor that he had COVID-19.
“I might fall down, but I will stand up again quickly, ” he wrote on Facebook.
Huang said that the city government has asked the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division to investigate the rumors and that it would file lawsuits against people found to have started the rumors.
People should not to share online rumors, she said.
In other news, the city government said that a man who died on a street in Taipei on Sunday had not been quarantined.
Local Chinese-language media reported that a 48-year-old man surnamed Liu (劉), who had been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 case, but lost contact with health authorities, was found unconscious at midday on Sunday and was dead on arrival at a hospital.
Taipei City Government deputy spokesman Tai Yu-wen (戴于文) said that Liu had been in the same New Taipei City hospital room as a confirmed COVID-19 case, but he did not come into close contact with the other patient and was assessed as having low risk of infection, so he was only listed as a “subject for health monitoring.”
The cause of Liu’s death is being investigated, Tai said.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that Liu was in the hospital room with the COVID-19 patient on Feb. 6, but they did not stay in the same space for more than an hour.
If a forensic pathologist suggests that the body be tested for COVID-19, specimens would be sent to the Central Epidemic Command Center, Chuang said.
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