The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday held its last news conference ahead of its dissolution on Monday next week, when COVID-19 would be downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 notifiable communicable disease.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the center, told the news conference that 99 people had developed severe complications of COVID-19 over the previous seven days — up from 93 in the previous seven-day period — and 13 people had died from the disease.
Since March 20, the number of severe COVID-19 infections has remained virtually stable at its lowest point this year, Wang said.
Photo: CNA
After Monday next week, all updates on COVID-19, along with other diseases, would be made during the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) weekly news briefing on Tuesdays, he said.
The CDC would continue to recommend that people receive at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot this year to boost their immunity, Wang said.
The center has not made a decision on whether COVID-19 vaccines would be needed next year, he said.
Photo: CNA
The CECC was formed by the CDC on Jan. 20, 2020, following the spread of the then-unknown disease first reported by authorities in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019.
The nation reported its first COVID-19 case on Jan. 21, 2020, a Taiwanese national returning from Wuhan, and had recorded more than 10.15 million cases as of March 10, before the definition of COVID-19 cases to be reported was limited to those with serious complications on March 20, health ministry data showed.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching