The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 95 imported and two local COVID-19 cases. It is also expanding the age range for younger inbound travelers who test positive with no or mild symptoms, starting today.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said the imported cases are 64 who tested positive at airports and 31 who tested positive during or upon ending quarantine.
Asked if two foreign visitors, who were invited to attend the 2022 Smart City Summit and Expo in Taipei under a quarantine-exempted “specialized bubble,” were among the cases, Chuang said they tested positive yesterday morning and are among the imported cases.
The two — a man from Poland and a woman from Paraguay — tested negative upon arrival on Monday, but tested positive in a second test yesterday morning.
The man was experiencing a cough and had a cycle threshold (Ct) value of 25, while the woman is asymptomatic with a Ct value of 36, he added.
Another participant at the expo, a woman from Belize, also tested positive on Tuesday, the day she arrived, he said.
One of the two local cases confirmed yesterday is a woman in her 40s from New Taipei City who tested positive at a hospital where she went to accompany a family member. She had a Ct value of 33.7.
The other is a family member of a previous case reported on Tuesday — a nurse at Taipei City Hospital’s Heping branch.
She developed a runny nose and sore throat on Tuesday, Chuang said, adding that she had a Ct value of 13.9.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said the policy of having some inbound travelers wait for their COVID-19 test results at the airport before they are allowed into the country has been implemented for more than two months.
A total of 320 cases were detected under the policy from Wednesday last week to Tuesday, an about 14 percent increase compared with the 280 cases detected the week before, he said.
Meanwhile, to use healthcare resources more efficiently, the CECC is expanding the criteria by which younger people with mild symptoms are arranged to stay in enhanced disease prevention hotels or centralized quarantine facilities, instead of a hospital, he said.
Lo said the existing criteria apply to people aged 20 to 49 with no or mild symptoms, and would be expanded to cover those aged 18 to 59, starting today.
Many imported cases were previous infections or students aged 18 or 19 from Southeast Asian countries who do not need much medical treatment, he said.
Other recent cases include business travelers, but the risk of severe COVID-19 in people in their 50s is also relatively low, and there are healthcare professionals in enhanced disease prevention hotels or centralized quarantine facilities, he added.
Separately, Chuang announced that the digital COVID-19 vaccination certificate system would be updated by 8am today, with a few new features, such as allowing users to register with a household registration number or passport number.
Developers also cooperated with Apple and Google to let users access their digital certificate by saving it in their Apple Wallets for iOS devices and the COVID Card API for Android devices, he added.
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