Taiwan records 75 new COVID-19 cases, including one domestic

ROC Central News Agency

03/18/2022 04:24 PM

Taipei, March 18 (CNA) Taiwan reported 75 new COVID-19 cases on Friday -- one domestically transmitted and 74 that originated abroad -- and no new deaths from the disease, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The only domestic case was a man in his 30s, whose source of infection remains unknown, said CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) in a daily press briefing.

The man, a salesman in Chiayi City in southern Taiwan, developed symptoms on March 14 and tested positive in a self-test, Chuang said.

He was confirmed to have contracted the disease on March 17 by the CECC, which has also tested 21 contacts of the man.

Sixteen of the contacts have tested negative, while results for the other five were not yet available, the CECC said.

The figures do not include imported cases reclassified as domestic ones, nor retroactively removed cases. As of March 18, Taiwan recorded 891 domestic cases in 2022, while the total number of imported cases rose to 6,110 from 2,375 on Dec. 31.

Meanwhile, the CECC reported that the imported cases consisted of 52 males and 22 females aged from under 5 to under 70.

Those individuals entered Taiwan from Dec. 17, 2021 to March 17, 2022, from a total of 14 countries, including the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, Canada and Poland, the CECC said, and 36 of them tested positive for the virus upon landing in Taiwan.

To date, Taiwan has confirmed 21,658 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 15,494 domestically transmitted infections.

With no deaths reported on Friday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remained at 853.

(By Chang Ming-hsuan and Lee Hsin-Yin)

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1. More doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BNT 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, while medical workers can sometimes get more than the standard number of shots from a Pfizer-BNT vial. 2. Information about the booster dose and additional dose can be found at https://t.ly/4ZuW