There would be no discussion on whether to completely lift the mask mandate until next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Asked about Hong Kong’s decision to lift its mask mandate today, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), the CECC’s spokesman, said that the CECC would not discuss whether Taiwan would further ease its mask mandate until the middle of next month.
Under Hong Kong’s new mask rules, people in the territory do not have to wear masks indoors or outdoors, including on public transportation, but still have to wear them in medical institutions.
Photo: CNA
Lo said that Taiwan’s mask mandate was relaxed on Feb. 20 to allow people to be mask-free in most indoor settings.
The next step would be easing quarantine and reporting rules for people who are infected, he said.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, has said a full lifting of mask requirements could take place in May, but that actual implementation would depend on vaccine coverage and the status of the local outbreak at that point.
Meanwhile, the CECC reported 10,120 new cases of COVID-19 and 40 deaths from the disease yesterday.
Among the new cases, 9,908 were contracted domestically, a 41.4 percent drop from the same day a week earlier, CECC data showed.
The decrease was partly due to the extended holiday for yesterday’s 228 Peace Memorial Day, during which many medical institutions were closed, Lo said.
The daily number is expected to rebound to about 15,000 to 20,000 today and tomorrow, Lo said.
However, the local outbreak is declining as expected and the mask mandate for schools is set to be eased on Monday next week as scheduled, he said.
To date, Taiwan has recorded 10,043,227 COVID-19 infections and 17,948 deaths from the disease since the pandemic began in early 2020.
The CECC has stopped providing daily information on the age distribution and health status of the deceased, and the number of vaccine doses they received.
It is also no longer releasing daily infection numbers for each of Taiwan’s administrative regions.
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