Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by nearly 80 percent from the previous week, while the number of whooping cough cases reported so far this year reached 14, the most for the first four months in six years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
There were 5,853 hospital visits for COVID-19 from April 27 to Saturday, up 78 percent from the previous seven-day period and the highest weekly number this year, CDC data showed.
Weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing weekly since the start of last month, reaching 5,893 last week, including 33 severe cases and four deaths, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said.
Photo: CNA
Among the people with severe COVID-19 and those who died from the disease so far this year, more than 91 percent had not received the JN.1-adapted vaccine, while most were elderly or had underlying health conditions, the CDC said.
The youngest person with severe symptoms last week was a four-year-old girl, who did not have underlying health conditions and had never been vaccinated against COVID-19, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said.
The child was coughing with phlegm and had a mild fever last month, Lin said.
She was initially treated at a clinic, but was later rushed to a hospital with a persistent fever, severe coughing, loss of appetite and vitality, and difficulty breathing, Lin said.
The child had low blood pressure, respiratory distress, an elevated white blood cell count, pulmonary infiltrates in both lungs and tested positive for COVID-19, Lin said, adding that she was admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) where she was conscious and had stable vital signs.
While COVID-19 activity is increasing rapidly, the 5,853 hospital visits last week was still low compared with the 19,334 visits in the same week last year, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said.
The centers estimate that COVID-19 activity would continue to increase in the next few weeks, but as there are many factors invoved — including infection wave peaks tending to decrease, with the previous wave being more than six months ago, and the introduction of JN.1-adapted vaccines — it is difficult to accurately predict when cases would top out, Lo said.
People who are eligible for the JN.1-adpated COVID-19 vaccine are advised to get vaccinated for better protection, he added.
Three local cases of whooping cough were reported last week, two two-month-old boys and a girl under one month, Lee said.
Fourteen local cases have been reported so far this year, the most in the period in six years, she said, adding that six cases (42.9 percent) were under three months old.
Only one of the boys with whooping cough had received a dose of a pentavalent vaccine, Lin said, adding that both boys had been discharged from hospital, while the girl was still being treated in an ICU.
The relatively high number of whooping cough cases this year is likely associated with an increase in cases in nearby countries, including Japan, which has reported more than 9,300 cases this year, with some being antibiotic-resistant strains, Lo said.
Antibiotic-resistant strains of whooping cough have not been reported in Taiwan this year, but parents are advised to get their young children vaccinated with the five-dose pentavalent vaccine according to the recommended schedule for better protection, and doctors should test children for whooping cough if the have persistent coughing, he said.
As newborns are at the highest risk of severe complications from whooping cough, the CDC recommends that pregnant women get a dose of the pentavalent vaccine between the 28th and 36th week of pregnancy to protect the mother and the baby, Lin said.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
RSS