The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 19,753 new local COVID-19 infections, 212 imported cases and 51 deaths, and reminded people to be aware of an online scam claiming that the government will provide a NT$50,000 subsidy to people who contract the disease.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman, said that the daily local caseload fell 8.5 percent from the day before and 7.1 percent from Saturday last week.
Of the 51 deaths, 32 were men and 19 were women, with 50 who had underlying health conditions and 30 who had not received a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, Chuang said.
There were 99 moderate and 46 severe cases reported yeterday, he said, adding that among the severe cases, three were diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) after acute COVID-19 infection.
The three cases are a two-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl who recovered after treatment and have been discharged from hospital in the past week, and an 11-year-old boy, who has valvular heart disease and had received two vaccine doses, Chuang said.
The boy is still hospitalized, Chuang added.
He said that 4,629 children aged six months to five years received vaccine shots on Friday, bringing the vaccination rate of the age group to 13.6 percent.
Meanwhile, the CECC on Friday issued a news release warning the public about an online scam.
Text messages falsely claiming to be from the CDC provide a link to a Web site that resembles the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s page, the CECC said.
The falsified site is intended to deceive people into believing that because they contracted COVID-19, they could apply for NT$50,000 by filling in their personal data, it said.
People should remain vigilant, not click on links that lead to unknown Web sites, avoid filling in personal information and call the 165 anti-fraud hotline if they suspect a message to be a scam, the CECC said.
Information on the ministry’s COVID-19-related subsidies is on its Web site at https://swis.mohw.gov.tw/covidweb and at the Executive Yuan’s 1988 COVID-19 relief Web site: https://1988.taiwan.gov.tw.
In other news, the CDC yesterday reported a third imported case of monkeypox.
A Taiwanese man in his 20s who had traveled to the US last month and returned to Taiwan on Tuesday had swollen lymph nodes, pustules, a backache and a fever on Wednesday, and tested positive for monkeypox on Thursday, the CDC said.
He is being treated in an isolated hospital room, it added.
Two close contacts of the man who traveled with him and had intimate contact with him had not shown symptoms and were ordered to practice self-health monitoring until Aug. 23, it said.
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