Taiwan’s rate of COVID infection is 0.18%, making Taiwan the fourth lowest in the world, after Vanuatu, Hong Kong, and China. That was the word from Health minister Chen Shih-chung at the daily press COVID conference on Sunday.
Taiwan reported 14 new local cases of COVID-19 on Sunday and 40 more imported cases among people arriving in Taiwan. Eight of the imported cases were confirmed upon arrival while the other 32 were confirmed during quarantine. There were no deaths reported.
Of the 14 local cases, five were found during quarantine while the other 9 were from first-round testing. The new domestic cases were all linked to previously reported clusters in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, and Yilan County.
Chen states that the lower case counts on Sunday reflect an improvement in the situation as testing counts have not gone down in the past few days. Chen said there will be time before the nation can return to zero cases. The current clusters need to be observed to at least Feb. 10 to see if the current outbreak is contained.
Four cases are children at a Kaohsiung day care center. Another case is a relative of a confirmed case. There are six cases related to that day care center cluster which originated with a Yilan cluster.
One more case related to the Taoyuan Tasty restaurant cluster was discovered in quarantine. This cluster has been effectively contained. Two more confirmed cases were Askey workers from Taoyuan that were discovered in quarantine
Six of the new cases were fully vaccinated, two had received one dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while five persons, including four children had not received any vaccine doses.
Taiwan’s vaccination rate is 82% having received one dose, 75% having received a second dose and 23% having received a booster shot. Vaccines are available during the Lunar New Year holidays and Chen encouraged people to take this opportunity to receive one.
Taiwan has confirmed 18,735 COVID-19 cases including 15,048 domestically transmitted infections. The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remains at 851.
During the Lunar New Year national holidays, January 31 - February 3, there will be no CECC press conferences.