The large COVID-19 clusters reported in the past few weeks are gradually easing, though the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is still concerned about some smaller clusters where cases have continued to pop up, Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung (???) said Sunday.
Taoyuan, Kaohsiung clusters
The large clusters that Chen was referring to were ones at the Port of Kaohsiung and in Taoyuan, which recorded one and three new cases, respectively, on Sunday.
The outbreak in Taoyuan originated at the Taoyuan International Airport in early January, after which related clusters emerged at a social club, factories, a bank, a Tasty steakhouse, and, most recently, at the Farglory Free Trade Zone.
Over 260 cases linked to the outbreak, which involves the Omicron variant, have been reported, CECC data shows.
The cluster at the Port of Kaohsiung, meanwhile, totals 81 cases to date. The cluster is suspected to have begun with a maintenance worker at the port who came into contact with people on board a Sierra Leone-flagged vessel.
The cluster also involves the Omicron variant, though the version differs from the one in the Taoyuan outbreak, according to the CECC.
As these two clusters have begun to report fewer cases, the CECC is more concerned about some smaller ongoing clusters of unknown origin, one of which involves a hotpot restaurant, preschool, and a beauty salon in Taoyuan, which grew by five cases to a total of 39 on Sunday, Chen said.
Four of these five new cases work at the same company and they visited the salon together. The CECC is tracing their contacts and testing their colleagues, Chen said.
The Omicron variant circulating in this cluster matches the one found in the larger outbreak in Taoyuan, but the CECC has not yet been able to identify how the two are connected.
Yilan hotel-related cases
The other cluster Chen mentioned was first reported among employees at the Evergreen Resort Hotel Jiaosi in Yilan County but has spread to a preschool in Kaohsiung via a family who stayed at the hotel in mid-January.
This cluster recorded five new cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 21, according to CECC data.
Genome sequencing results show that the cluster also involves the Omicron variant but a different version to those circulating in Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.
Two other clusters also of unknown origin that the CECC is concerned about are one centered around a man in Taoyuan’s Longtan District and one linked to a family in Taipei, Chen said.
These two clusters did not record any new cases on Sunday, leaving their totals at seven and 12, respectively.
Of the domestic cases confirmed Sunday, six were fully vaccinated, two had received one dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while five individuals, including four under the age of 10, had not received any vaccine doses, the CECC said.
The vaccination status of one case is still under investigation, the CECC said.
Imported cases
In addition to the domestic cases, Taiwan also reported 40 imported cases on Sunday. Of these, eight tested positive upon arrival in the country on Saturday, and the other 32 tested positive during quarantine.
The CECC did not release any information regarding the vaccination status of the imported cases.
To date, Taiwan has confirmed 18,735 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 15,048 domestically transmitted infections.
With no deaths reported on Sunday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the country remains at 851.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel