The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday reported eight new COVID-19 cases, all contracted overseas, but no deaths from the disease.
The eight new imported cases involved seven men and one woman aged 20 to 50 who arrived in Taiwan between Oct. 8 and Tuesday. Four arrived from Indonesia, three from the Philippines and one from the US, the center said.
The eight new cases brought the total this month to 157, with only eight being domestic infections and the other 149 contracted overseas.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
To date, Taiwan has confirmed 16,388 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began early last year, of which 14,425 were domestic infections reported since May 15, when the nation first recorded more than 100 cases in a single day.
Since Aug. 15, the daily number of domestic cases has fallen to mostly single digits. The total number of domestic cases since Aug. 15 is 122, center data showed.
With no new deaths reported yesterday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities in the nation remained at 847, all but 12 recorded since May 15, the center said.
As of Tuesday, 69.49 percent of the nation’s 23.43 million people had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 29.6 percent had been fully vaccinated, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said.
The government is expected to achieve its goal of a 70 percent first-dose vaccination rate and 30 percent full vaccination rate by the end of this month, Chen said.
Meanwhile, a sixth shipment of COVID-19 vaccines donated by Japan, consisting of 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, arrived in Taiwan yesterday.
The shipment was delivered by Japan Airlines Flight JL6729, which touched down at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 9:49am.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi had announced the sixth vaccine donation at a news conference on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s donation brings the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by Tokyo to 4.2 million, the most doses donated to Taiwan by any nation.
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