Taiwan reported 88 new domestic cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, one imported case and nine deaths.
Health Minister Chen Shih-chung noted the downward trend in COVID-19 cases, but also said there has been much concern over recent cluster outbreaks. These include the Taipei wholesale produce market outbreak and a Pingtung County cluster of cases with the Delta variant.
There have been 12 confirmed cases with the Delta variant in the Pingtung County cluster. In the past few days, there has also been mass testing in Pingtung with 913 people taking PCR tests so far and only one person testing positive.
Taiwan is also going to be enacting stricter measures at markets to help prevent the spread of the virus.
Officials also warned about fake news reports that say the Moderna vaccine is dangerous and will destroy or change one’s genes. Officials assured the public that the Moderna vaccine is a globally-recognized effective vaccine. Officials also noted that these unfactual reports contain simplified characters, which are used in China, and Chinese phrases not used in Taiwan.
The case totals announced on Sunday by city and county are as follows:
New Taipei City: 41
Taipei City: 33
Tainan City: 8
Taoyuan City: 3
Pingtung County: 1
Nantou County: 1
Hsinchu City: 1
The addition of nine new fatalities from the virus brings the death toll from the beginning of the pandemic to 632. Those who passed away include three men and six women, with the youngest of the deceased in their 40s. They had contracted the disease between May 15 - June 22 and died between June 22 - June 26.
Taiwan has a total of 14,634 confirmed cases of COVID-19.