Students are to be given four free COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits from Monday as they prepare to restart in-person classes, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
The test kits would be delivered via post, allowing students in elementary, junior-high and high schools, as well as those in the first three years of five-year junior colleges, to obtain the test kits before in-person classes restart, Su said during an inspection of vaccination sites.
The free test kits would be distributed independent of the ongoing national rationing scheme, meaning that students who have purchased rapid test kits through the rationing system would still get four free test kits, the Ministry of Education said.
Photo: CNA
Moreover, students who graduated this year can claim the four free rapid test kits from the school they left, the ministry said.
The timetable to resume in-person classes is different across the administrative regions.
In-person classes in Taipei and Keelung are to restart on Monday, Hualien County has said they would restart on Thursday, while New Taipei City has said that schools can decide their own schedules.
Most schools in Hsinchu City and County, Miaoli County, Taichung, Nantou County, Yunlin County, Taitung County, Penghu County, Lienchiang County and Yilan County have said that remote classes would continue through at least Friday next week.
In Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung County, Changhua County and Chiayi County, most schools are to apply the same measure all of next week, while Chiayi City has announced that physical classes would restart on June 13.
Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 76,564 new COVID-19 cases — 76,517 domestically transmitted and 47 imported cases — and 142 deaths from the disease.
The death toll was slightly lower than the single-day high of 145 deaths on Sunday.
The 142 people reported to have died of COVID-19 complications ranged in age from their 20s to 90s, CECC data showed. Sixty-seven were unvaccinated against COVID-19 and 134 had chronic illnesses or other severe diseases.
The youngest person who died was a man in his 20s, who had a prior immune system disease and had not been vaccinated, the data showed.
The CECC also said that 140 previously reported COVID-19 cases had since become severe infections, while 269 others had developed moderate symptoms.
Of the 2,170,453 domestic cases recorded in Taiwan this year as of Wednesday, 2,144 have been classified as severe infections and 4,393 as moderate, accounting for 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent of the total respectively, the data showed.
With the 142 deaths reported yesterday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities rose to 2,663, the data showed.
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