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COVID-19 situation in Taiwan to become clearer within 10 days: CECC

ROC Central News Agency

06/02/2022 09:40 PM

Taipei, June 2 (CNA) The domestic COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan remains in a plateau phase but it will become clearer within the next 10 days if the country is reaching a turning point, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said Thursday.

While the outbreak in northern Taiwan has begun to decline, new infections in central and southern areas are still increasing, Chen said at a Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) a daily news briefing.

Chen made the comment in response to public concerns as the COVID-19 surge shows no significant signs of abating, with the average number of new cases recently averaging about 80,000 each day.

Once the confirmed COVID-19 rate for the whole population reaches 10-12 percent, daily new case numbers are expected to start declining, Chen said on Wednesday.

Asked to further comment on the issue on Thursday, Chen said that Taiwan's COVID-19 epidemic curve is similar to that of Singapore where the spread of the disease began to slow down once the national infection rate reached about 11 percent.

Currently, Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan and Keelung have all reached an infection rate of 10 percent, and there are signs that the COVID-19 outbreak in those places is turning around, according to Chen.

Once the national infection rate reaches 10 percent, new COVID-19 cases are likely to start declining, Chen said, adding that this is because the higher the number of infected people, the greater protection provided by natural immunity against COVID-19, which leads to a slowdown in the transmission of the virus.

Also Thursday, Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎), a pediatric infectious diseases physician at National Taiwan University Hospital, said the plateau period of the currently COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan has lasted longer than expected, because Taiwanese people's high awareness of epidemic prevention has flattened the curve of infection in the country.

Lee forecast that the number of domestic COVID-19 cases will begin to go down after the infection rate for the Omicron variant reaches 20-30 percent.

Taiwan reported 76,986 new COVID-19 cases, including 76,967 domestically transmitted, and 144 deaths from the disease on Thursday.

To date, Taiwan has recorded 2,198,161 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 2,185,056 domestic infections.

With the 144 deaths reported Thursday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities in the country has risen to 2,521, CECC data showed.

(By Chen Chieh-ling, Chang Ming-hsun and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/AW