Taiwan on Monday extended the current Level 2 COVID-19 alert to Feb. 7 and recorded four new positive cases at a hotel in Jiaoxi Township of Yilan County, whose source of infection is still unknown, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

Level 2 alert

The Level 2 alert was originally set to expire at the end of Monday.

The CECC has not adjusted the nation’s mask mandate for the two-week extension, meaning that people are still required to wear masks while outside of their homes, unless they are eating, or if they are in outdoor spaces with very few people, such as in forests or fields.

Tightened rules on religious gatherings and a ban on eating on public transport that was announced on Saturday remain in place.

The CECC has also introduced stricter rules regarding hospitals and long-term care facilities, including banning visits to hospitalized patients.

Taiwan first raised the COVID-19 alert to Level 2, the third-highest level on the CECC’s four-tier scale, on May 11, 2021, after it began seeing domestic cases with unknown sources.

The alert level was raised to Level 3 on May 19 following a surge in domestically transmitted cases to more than 100 a day, but it was lowered back to Level 2 on July 27 after a month of reporting fewer than 100 domestic cases per day.

Some Level 3 rules, such as the requirement to wear a face mask when outside one’s home, have been maintained.

New domestic cases

Also on Monday, Taiwan confirmed 15 new domestic COVID-19 cases, of which four are employees at Evergreen Resort Hotel Jiaosi in Yilan. The first case at the hotel, also an employee, was recorded Sunday, and the hotel has been closed since.

The CECC has tested 915 employees and guests so far, with four employees testing positive, Chen said.

Genome sequencing and contact tracing are being conducted to determine how the five individuals contracted the disease, he added.

Besides the cluster in Yilan County, the infection source of a cluster involving a family of three in Taipei and a contact of theirs in New Taipei, which was reported Sunday, is still unknown, Chen said.

Among the other domestic cases confirmed Monday are eight linked to the Port of Kaohsiung, bringing the number of cases related to the cluster there to 51.

Kaohsiung health authorities previously speculated that the cluster could have begun with a maintenance worker at the port who had come into contact with people on board a Sierra Leone-flagged vessel, although this has not yet been confirmed.

The remaining three domestic cases recorded Monday are two linked to the Farglory Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Taoyuan and the family member of a previously confirmed case in a bank cluster in the city.

The cluster at the Farglory FTZ, which has now confirmed 102 cases, and the bank are both connected to a larger outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Taoyuan, which has been traced back to Taoyuan International Airport in early January and involves the Omicron variant.

According to the CECC, seven of the new domestic cases were classified as breakthrough infections, and one of the individuals infected had received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The vaccination status of the remaining cases is still under investigation.

Imported cases

In addition to the domestic cases, Taiwan also recorded 36 imported cases on Monday. Of these, 23 tested positive upon arrival in the country on Sunday, and the other 13 were travelers who tested positive during quarantine.

The CECC did not release any information regarding the vaccination status of the imported cases.

To date, Taiwan has confirmed 18,376 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, of which 14,918 were domestic infections.

With no deaths reported Monday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remained at 851.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel