Taiwan reports 21st case in hospital cluster, four new imported cases
ROC Central News Agency
02/09/2021 05:36 PM
Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) A family member of a nurse at Taoyuan General Hospital has been confirmed as having COVID-19, after previously testing negative five times for the disease, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Tuesday.
The new case is the sister-in-law of a nurse at the hospital and is the seventh person in her family to contract COVID-19, said Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, at a press briefing in Taipei.
The nurse, her husband, two daughters, mother-in-law and father-in-law all tested positive for COVID-19 in January. The nurse's mother-in-law passed away from the disease on Jan. 29.
As they lived together in the same household, the nurse's sister-in-law has been in quarantine since Jan. 19, a day after the nurse was confirmed with the disease. While in quarantine, she tested negative five times for COVID-19, Chen said.
As the sister-in-law applied to leave quarantine to deal with funeral matters, she was tested on Feb. 8 and the results came back positive on Tuesday, with a CT level of 17, Chen said.
Four people the woman lived with have been asked to quarantine again until Feb. 22, even though they had previously been in quarantine for two weeks, according to Chen.
As of Tuesday, 21 people linked to the hospital in Taoyuan have been confirmed with COVID-19 -- two doctors, four nurses, one migrant caregiver, eight relatives of two of the nurses, two hospital patients, three relatives of the two patients, and a contact of one of the patients.
Three of the patients have already been discharged, while two others will be discharged soon, said CECC advisor Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳).
Two patients who developed severe cases of COVID-19 are still in intensive care units, although their condition has been improving, Chang said.
Also on Tuesday, Taiwan reported four new imported cases of COVID-19, according to the CECC.
One of the cases is a Taiwanese woman in her 20s who went to study in the United States in August last year, the CECC said.
She returned to Taiwan on Dec. 22 and went to get tested at a hospital on Feb. 6 because she was planning on leaving Taiwan. The result was inconclusive, however, and she was tested again the next day and confirmed with COVID-19.
She has displayed no symptoms of the disease, the CECC said.
Further tests showed that the woman had IgG antibodies but no IgM antibodies, which indicates she was most likely infected a while ago in the U.S. and there is very little chance she was infectious during her time in Taiwan, CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) told CNA.
The patient told the CECC that she ate all of her meals at home, wore a mask when she went outside, and did not take public transportation while in Taiwan, Chang said.
The CECC will continue to trace where the woman went and disinfect those locations if necessary, Chang said.
The three other cases reported Tuesday were Taiwanese women who recently returned from the U.S. and France, and all tested positive for COVID-19 during quarantine after developing symptoms, the CECC said.
To date, Taiwan has reported 933 cases of COVID-19, of which 817 have been classified as imported. Of the total, nine patients have died, 850 have recovered and 74 remain in hospital receiving treatment, CECC data shows.
Since the onset of the pandemic, COVID-19 has infected about 106.4 million people in 193 countries and regions worldwide, with more than 2.3 million fatalities, according to CECC statistics as of Tuesday.
(By Chiang Yi-ching)
Enditem/AW
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
