No new COVID-19 cases reported in Taiwan Saturday

ROC Central News Agency

05/30/2020 02:16 PM

Taipei, May 30 (CNA) No new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus were confirmed in Taiwan on Saturday, leaving the total number of cases at 442 since the pandemic began late last year, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

During a daily press briefing, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the CECC, said Saturday was also the 48th consecutive day with no domestically transmitted infections.

The last time Taiwan recorded a domestic infection was April 12, according to the CECC.

"Forty-eight straight days of no local infections is good news for Taiwan, but the pandemic is still very serious around the world where it passed six million infections today," Chen said.

Special attention will still need to be paid towards border control, Chen added.

The latest imported infection, confirmed on Friday, was of a man in his 20s, who went to Russia in February to study and returned to Taiwan on Tuesday.

To date, 351 of Taiwan's 442 cases of COVID-19 have been classified as imported, while 55 are believed to be local infections, according to CECC statistics.

The other 36 cases were aboard a Navy vessel that was on a goodwill mission in the Pacific in March, but the CECC has said that the cluster infection originated in Taiwan.

So far, 421 COVID-19 patients in Taiwan have recovered, seven have died, and the others remain in hospital, according to the CECC.

Globally, COVID-19 has infected 5,941,199 people in 187 countries and regions, including 1,774,544 in the United States, 438,238 in Brazil, 387,623 in Russia, 271,222 in the United Kingdom, and 238,564 in Spain, with a total of 363,716 fatalities, according to CECC statistics as of Saturday.

(By William Yen)

Enditem/cs