The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported two local cases and five imported cases of COVID-19.
One of the local cases is a male seventh-grade student at a school in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told the center’s daily news briefing in Taipei.
The school has suspended classes, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
A key task for the center is to monitor the situation at the junior-high school and prevent further spread of the virus, he said.
The student began showing symptoms on Wednesday and was hospitalized the next day, the center said in a news release.
At least 51 people who have had contact with the student have been ordered to quarantine at home, the center said, adding that an investigation into the source of the infection is ongoing.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) told a separate news conference that the student is a member of a soccer team, so he had contact with students in other classes.
Other schools near that of the boy’s were not required to suspend classes, but parents who have concerns can seek “pandemic leave” for their children, Huang said.
The Taipei Department of Education Commissioner Tseng Tsan-chin (曾燦金) said that it has “advised” cram schools near the Songshan school to halt in-person classes, which would affect more than 600 students.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The seventh-grader tested positive at a medical facility in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), where his grandmother lives, so infection in Banciao cannot be ruled out yet, Huang said.
On Wednesday, New Taipei City raised its COVID-19 alert to “augmented level 2,” hours before the CECC confirmed that the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was the cause of a cluster of infections at a kindergarten in Banciao.
Chen said yesterday that no new cases were added to the cluster, which has 27 cases linked to it.
However, the CECC cannot jump to the conclusion that the cluster has been brought under control, he said.
The other local case is a man in his 60s who lives in New Taipei City, the center said.
Six people who have had contact with the man have been ordered to quarantine at home, it said.
The five imported cases reported yesterday were a Taiwanese woman and an American man who arrived from the US; a Turkish man who arrived from Turkey; a Japanese man who arrived from Japan; and a Russian man who arrived from Armenia, CECC data showed.
Three of them were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while the vaccination history of the others is being investigated, the data showed.
The center also reported one death, a man in his 70s, who died on Sunday.
In other developments, the CECC said that another batch of 458,000 doses of government-procured AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon.
The doses expire on Dec. 31 and they would be available once they have been properly inspected, Chen said.
The doses are part of 10 million that were ordered from AstraZeneca based on a contract signed on Oct. 30 last year, Chen said.
The company has delivered 3.727 million doses, including the eighth batch yesterday, he said.
Previous deliveries from AstraZeneca were 117,000 doses on March 3, 626,000 on July 7, 560,000 on July 15, 582,000 on July 27, 524,000 on Aug. 12, 265,000 on Aug. 27 and 595,000 on Aug. 31, CECC data showed.
As of Thursday, 10,941,158 people, or about 46.6 percent of Taiwan’s population, had received a first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,020,520 have received a second shot, center data showed.
Additional reporting by CNA
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