Taiwan’s mask mandate is to be relaxed from tomorrow as the number of domestic cases of COVID-19 has fallen, but the level 2 alert will be extended, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said yesterday.
The CECC is reconsidering mask requirements while outdoors in areas where there are few people, Chen said.
Government agencies have relayed complaints about having to wear a mask in places where there are few people, such as a farmer working in a field or a family hiking, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
As Taiwan reported an average of two locally transmitted cases per day last month, the CECC will likely relax the blanket mask rules, he said, adding that an announcement is likely tomorrow.
Taiwan yesterday reported 11 new cases, all contracted overseas, and one death.
It was the third time this week that no new domestic cases were reported.
However, the level 2 alert, which has been extended by two weeks four times, would remain in force after Monday, when the latest extension is to expire, Chen said.
Separately, Taiwan received a fourth batch of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines yesterday morning, the second such shipment delivered in 24 hours.
Yesterday’s shipment arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:16am on a China Airlines charter flight from Frankfurt airport in Germany.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) said that it contained approximately 600,000 doses.
It is part of 15 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses procured by three private entities — the Hon Hai-affiliated Yonglin Foundation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation.
All 15 million doses are to be donated to the government’s public vaccination program.
Yesterday’s shipment brought the total number of Pfizer-BioNTech doses delivered from the 15 million to about 2.98 million, CECC data showed.
A shipment of 540,000 doses was delivered from the vaccine manufacturer a day earlier.
The two shipments were the first from Pfizer-BioNTech that had customized labeling.
Images provided by the CECC on Thursday showed that the wording on the packages was mostly English, including the instructions and the name of Chinese pharmaceutical company Fosun Pharma, which has partnered with BioNTech.
The only Chinese characters read “prescription drug” (處方藥物) in traditional Chinese.
Fosun Pharma is the vaccine’s distributor for Taiwan and China.
Previous Pfizer-BioNTech deliveries — about 1.8 million doses — that Taiwan received last month had labels with the name of the vaccine in simplified Chinese, while Fosun Pharma was in English and Chinese.
They were labeled that way because they had been redirected to Taiwan after China refused the batches.
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