Taiwan reports two new COVID-19 cases, two quarantine hotel clusters
ROC Central News Agency
02/07/2022 10:11 PM
Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) Taiwan on Monday reported two new domestic COVID-19 cases, and reclassified three previously recorded cases as domestic after confirming the individuals involved were infected during stays in quarantine hotels.
The two new domestic cases were linked to previously reported clusters at the Port of Kaohsiung and in the Greater Taipei area, Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said at a Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) briefing.
Of the two individuals involved, who tested positive while in quarantine, one had received one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, while the other, a girl under the age of 10, had not received a vaccine, according to the CECC.
In addition to the domestic cases, Taiwan also reported 47 imported cases on Monday, 28 of whom tested positive upon arrival in Taiwan on Sunday. The CECC did not release any information regarding the vaccination status of the imported cases.
Quarantine hotel cases
The three reclassified cases, meanwhile, were guests at two quarantine hotels in Taipei and Kaohsiung, CECC official Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) said.
Health authorities began looking into the hotel in Taipei after a guest who stayed there during quarantine tested positive on Jan. 29, several days after she finished her time in isolation and checked out, Lo said.
Authorities found that four other people on the same floor — a family of three from India and a Taiwanese returning from China — had tested positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine at the hotel, and genome sequencing showed that their viruses were a match, Lo said.
Therefore, the two Taiwanese were reclassified as domestic cases, Lo said.
The figures do not include four cases reclassified as domestic in early January, nor retroactively removed cases. As of Feb. 7, Taiwan recorded 602 domestic and 1,561 imported COVID-19 cases in 2022.
Taipei
Speaking at a separate press briefing, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said health officials concluded that the virus spread from the family from India to the two Taiwanese nationals returning from China because they were infected with the Omicron variant, which was not yet widespread in China at the time.
Health officials also took into consideration the incubation period of the virus and when the patients began showing symptoms of the disease, Ko said.
The hotel's 11 employees and 26 other guests have tested negative for COVID-19, Ko said, and the floor the infected patients stayed on will be closed until the hotel makes improvements to their air conditioning system.
No conclusion has been reached on how the virus spread between the people there, Ko said, though he suggested it may have resulted from the individuals opening doors to their rooms at the same time or air circulating between the rooms.
The hotel stays of the five infected individuals overlapped for five days, from Jan. 20 to Jan. 24, Ko said.
Kaohsiung
The remaining case that was reclassified involved a Taiwanese man who returned from China on Jan. 15. He stayed in a quarantine hotel in Kaohsiung for 14 days before returning to his home in Taoyuan, Lo said.
He tested positive a few days after leaving quarantine, and his genome sequence was found to be a match with the virus spreading in the Port of Kaohsiung cluster.
The CECC suspects he was infected by a woman who was staying on the same floor of the hotel.
She was in quarantine because a family member had tested positive for COVID-19, and she later tested positive herself, Lo said, adding that both of these cases were linked to the port.
According to Kaohsiung's Department of Health, both of the infected individuals left their hotel rooms on Jan. 28. The man went to receive a routine COVID-19 test scheduled prior to the end of quarantine, and the woman switched rooms because the toilet in her room broke.
The health department will continue to look into the case to determine how the virus spread, it said.
Taiwan has reported eight clusters at quarantine hotels since the beginning of December, with five involving hotels in Taipei and one each at hotels in New Taipei, Taoyuan, and Kaohsiung.
1. More doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered in Taiwan than the government has officially received because recipients of the Moderna booster shot are given half the standard dose of the first and second jab. 2. Information about the booster dose and additional dose can be found at https://t.ly/4ZuW
To date, Taiwan has confirmed 19,192 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 15,202 domestically transmitted infections.
With no deaths reported on Monday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remains at 851.
(By Chiang Yi-ching)
Enditem/ls
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
