Taiwan yesterday reported eight domestic COVID-19 cases, but the sources of two cases have yet to be determined, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said.
Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said that six of the eight local cases tested positive after being placed under isolation, while the remaining two were reported in New Taipei City.
Three of the cases are family members in Miaoli County, who are related to a case in Kaohsiung, a quarry worker who returned to Miaoli for a family reunion during the Lunar New Year holidays, Chen said, adding that so far 22 people from the family have tested positive.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Four of the cases are linked to a cluster associated with a religious gathering in Taipei on Sunday last week at which a meal was eaten, he said.
Chen designated the cluster high-risk, so that local governments could arrange for people who are identified as close contacts to isolate in centralized quarantine facilities, paid for by the government.
The other new case is a nurse who works at an enhanced disease prevention hotel that accommodates confirmed COVID-19 cases with mild or no symptoms, Chen said, adding that 13 of her colleagues have tested negative, and so far the infection source is unknown.
The other case causing concern involves a man in his 50s who returned from China on Jan. 18 and tested negative several times in the 21 days following his arrival in Taiwan, he said.
The case was temporarily listed among the 65 imported cases reported yesterday until more information is gathered, Chen said.
The case, a Taiwanese, tested positive while preparing to travel abroad, and contact tracing is being conducted to clarify whether he could have contracted the virus while at a quarantine hotel, Chen said.
As for a small cluster of previously announced cases with an unknown infection source — a Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport police officer and two members of his family, Chen said that genome sequencing results showed he was infected with the same strain of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 as an imported case from Indonesia who tested positive with a high viral load upon arriving at the airport on Thursday last week.
However, although airport police were working in the area where inbound travelers were tested, the officer did not have direct contact with the imported case, Chen said.
As of Friday, the nation’s first-dose vaccination rate was 82.57 percent, the full vaccination rate was 76.16 percent and the booster dose vaccination rate was 35.44 percent, the CECC said.
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