Taiwan reported on Wednesday 14 new COVID-19 imported cases, including a pilot who recently flew to the United States, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
The 14 new cases consist of 11 Taiwanese nationals — four males and seven females, ranging in age from their teens to their 60s, a German man in his 30s, an American teenage girl, and a Thai man in his 30s, who entered Taiwan between Dec. 14 and Dec. 27, the CECC said in a statement.
Ten of them traveled from the U.S., including a Taiwanese pilot in his 30s, while the other four came from Germany, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, respectively, according to the CECC.
All of them tested positive either upon arrival in Taiwan or before they finished the mandatory quarantine required for all arrivals. Except for the American teenager, the others were classified as breakthrough infections, the CECC said.
The pilot was the seventh COVID-19 case reported by Taiwan for people flying planes for Taiwanese carriers since July, said Lo Yi-chun (???), a deputy director-general of the Centers for Disease Control, during the CECC’s press briefing Wednesday.
Three pilots working on the same flight from New York, which arrived in Taiwan on Dec. 22, have been placed in a quarantine, while 16 others listed as his contacts are being monitored, said Lo, adding that most of them have tested negative for COVID-19.
According to Lo, 99.7 percent of the pilots employed by Taiwanese carriers have been fully vaccinated, and 18.5 percent have received a booster dose, while the figures for flight attendants are 99.8 percent and 24.5 percent respectively.
In comparison, 79.87 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23.39 million have been given at least a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 67.57 percent have received two doses, CECC data released Wednesday showed.
Meanwhile, Taiwan confirmed two more previously reported COVID-19 cases as being infected with the Omicron variant Wednesday, bringing the total for such cases in the country to 50 since the first Omicron cases were reported on Dec. 11, according to Lo.
All 50 Omicron cases were individuals who had recently traveled to Taiwan and tested positive for COVID-19 within six days after their arrival, including 42 on the day they entered the country, Lo said.
So far, 21 of them are asymptomatic, and the other 29 have experienced mild symptoms, he added.
To date, Taiwan has confirmed 16,964 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, of which 14,436 were domestic infections reported since May 15, 2021, when the country first recorded more than 100 cases in a single day.
Daily domestic case numbers have fallen to mostly single digits or zero since Aug. 15. Ten such cases have been reported in December so far, including seven linked to cluster infections at quarantine hotels in Taipei and Taoyuan.
Meanwhile, 353 imported cases have been recorded in Taiwan since Dec. 1, including Wednesday’s 14 new cases.
With no deaths reported Wednesday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remains at 850, with all but 12 recorded since May 15. Taiwan last reported a death related to COVID-19 on Dec. 19, according to the CECC.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel