Health Minister Chen Shih-chung confirmed Wednesday that two COVID-19 clusters in Taiwan involve the highly transmissible Delta variant. One originated with an EVA Airways pilot who was confirmed to have COVID-19 last Friday. The other began with a kindergarten teacher who was confirmed to have COVID-19 on Sunday.
Chen says that genomic sequencing of COVID samples taken from the two clusters indicate that the transmitted strains are of the Delta variant. Furthermore, Chen says that testing shows the two Delta clusters are unrelated, meaning their source of infection was different.
As of Wednesday, the cluster that began with the pilot had expanded to include six cases. Meanwhile, the cluster at the kindergarten has grown to include 23 cases, ten of them confirmed to be of the Delta variant.