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COVID-19 cases dip slightly but remain around plateau: CDC

ROC Central News Agency

07/04/2023 10:27 PM

Taipei, July 4 (CNA) The number of serious COVID-19 infections in Taiwan fell slightly for a second consecutive week but remained on a plateau that has lasted most of June, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Tuesday.

From June 28 to July 4, Taiwan recorded a daily average of 207 moderate to severe COVID-19 cases, a 10.8 percent drop from the previous week's daily average of 232, following a week-on-week dip of 8 percent in the week of June 21-27.

Meanwhile, from June 25-July 1, the number of COVID-19 fatalities averaged around 45 per day, up from the previous week's average of 24 per day, due to delays in reporting over the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday from June 22-25.

The pandemic was still in a plateau phase, remaining relatively stable, CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-huai (曾淑慧) said.

The number of medical visits, usage of therapeutic drugs, regular antigen screening results from nursing institutions, cases of COVID-19 complications, and fatalities indicated that the epidemic was showing a slight decline, she added.

With summer travel surges increasing the risk of infection, there might be another peak in the epidemic towards the end of summer vacation, Infectious Disease Society Chairman Wang Fu-der (王復德) told the same press conference.

However, Tseng said that the prediction model run by the CDC suggested that it is considered unlikely that there will be another peak in a short period of time.

Separately, the local influenza situation also remains at a plateau, although there was a slight decrease in the number of visits to out-patient departments and emergency units for flu-like symptoms last week compared to the previous week, Tseng added.

According to statistics from the CDC, there have been a total of 349 severe cases of influenza complications from Oct.1 last year to July 3, among them individuals aged 65 and above account for 49 percent.

As for the 68 fatalities associated with influenza, 81 percent of them had not received seasonal influenza vaccine and 94 percent had underlying chronic illnesses, the CDC said.

Meanwhile, the number of patients seeking medical treatment for enterovirus has been below the epidemic threshold of 11,000 two weeks in a row, indicating that it is no longer in an epidemic phase and the epidemic is gradually declining, Tseng said.

She added, however, that enterovirus was still circulating at high levels, advising people to remain vigilant and pay attention to the early signs and symptoms of severe enterovirus cases.

(By Tseng Yi-ning and Shih Hsiu-chuan)

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