COVID-19-related mask requirements could be further eased after the Lunar New Year holiday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it also reported that the Omicron BA.2.75 and BA.5 subvariants of SARS-CoV-2 have become the dominant strains circulating in Taiwan.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) reported 15,409 new local cases, about 9 percent down from the number reported on Monday last week, while new imported cases remain relatively high at 223, and 40 deaths from the disease were confirmed.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the center, said 151,838 new local cases were reported last week, which is a 15.7 percent decline compared with the previous week.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The daily case trend suggests that Taiwan has passed the peak of its third wave of Omicron infections and new daily cases are dropping, but case numbers are expected to rebound after the Lunar New Year holiday, he said, adding that whether this would cause a “fourth wave” of infections is difficult to predict.
Wang said the center is planning to implement the second phase of mask mandate easing — which would only require masks in “high risk” indoor venues such as hospitals, long-term care facilities and public transportation — after the Lunar New Year holiday, if the COVID-19 situation remains stable.
The center also plans to downgrade COVID-19 as a category 4 notifiable communicable disease, he added.
Since the temporary arrival test requirement for travelers from China was implemented on Jan. 1, out of 22,057 China arrivals, 3,122 have tested positive, leading to a test positivity rate of 14.1 percent, Wang said, citing data as of Saturday.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC spokesperson, said 224 people among 2,408 passengers who arrived from China on Saturday tested positive upon arrival, with a positivity rate of 9.3 percent.
Wang said the positivity rate has been decreasing, but the COVID-19 situation in China is still escalating and the virus is expected to spread from cities to rural areas during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Although new variants have not been detected among travelers from China, the testing program would continue until the end of the month, he said, adding that the center would assess whether it should be extended.
He said the genomic sequencing results on 157 virus samples from infected travelers from China showed that 61.8 percent were infected with the BA.5 strain, 36.9 percent with BF.7 and 1.3 percent with BQ.1.
Meanwhile, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said weekly genomic sequence surveillance data showed that the BA.2.75 subvariant has become a dominant strain, along with the current dominant BA.5 strain.
Of the sequenced imported cases — excluding travelers from China — last week, the BA.5 and BA.2.75 strains constituted 30 percent of the cases each, while the BQ.1 strain made up 20 percent and the XBB strain made up 13 percent, he said.
Of the sequenced local cases, 45 percent were infected with BA.5, followed by 41 percent infected with BA.2.75, Lo said, adding that the two subvariants are likely to constitute most local infections during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The XBB.1.5 subvariant has not yet been detected in Taiwan, Lo said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS