Most of Taiwan’s 672 local COVID-19 cases this year involved the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, and patients aged 12 or younger mostly had different symptoms from older people, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
While 590 of the local cases where adolescents or adults, 82 of those infected were children aged 12 or younger, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division.
About 63 percent of the infected children had fevers and coughs, while only about 20 percent of adolescents and adults had a fever, he said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
However, gathering data is difficult, as younger children often cannot describe their symptoms, he said.
Infected children rarely described muscle aches, shivers or loss of smell, likely due to their inability to describe the symptoms, he said.
The CECC yesterday reported 18 domestically transmitted cases, included a high-school student in Tainan, Lo said, adding that the city’s health authorities ordered the school to temporarily close for disinfection.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said that 145 people had been identified as contacts of the girl, adding that 134 of them have been ordered to quarantine and 11 have been ordered to observe self-health management protocols.
The protocols require listed contacts of COVID-19 cases to wear masks at all times outside and avoid situations where they might come into close contact with others.
Huang said that 210 secondary contacts of the student had undergone COVID-19 tests, but so far none of them tested positive.
The student, who lives in Kaohsiung, was tested along with her parents on Thursday, after a friend of hers tested positive the day before, he said.
From Monday to Wednesday, the student attended a winter camp, potentially coming in contact with many children under the age of 12, Huang said.
Separately, the New Taipei City Government yesterday highlighted another case reported yesterday with a potentially large number of contacts, a worker at a Kebuke tea shop.
It was the second case at the branch, after another worker was confirmed to have COVID-19 on Thursday, and it remains unknown where the two contracted the virus, the city government said.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said health authorities discovered the second case when testing close contacts of the first case at the outlet.
However, only one of the first case’s 19 close contacts identified so far tested positive, Hou said, adding that contact tracing would continue, including in southern Taiwan, where the case traveled during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The CECC yesterday also reported 61 imported cases, arrivals from Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, the US and Vietnam.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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