Taiwan reported six new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, all contracted overseas, and zero new deaths from the disease, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
The positive cases were two Taiwanese and four foreign nationals who had recently traveled to Taiwan from the United States, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the CECC said in a statement.
They had tested positive for COVID-19 either upon arrival in Taiwan or during quarantine, the CECC said.
Also on Sunday, the CECC said that 259 contacts of a domestic COVID-19 case confirmed on Dec. 9 had tested negative for the disease. None of the case’s contacts have tested positive so far.
The patient, the first locally-transmitted case in Taiwan in over a month, is a woman in her 20s who worked until early December in a laboratory at the Genomics Research Center at Academia Sinica in Taipei’s Nangang District.
The CECC concluded on Saturday that based on genome sequencing results, the source of the woman’s infection was the lab she worked at, which had been conducting experiments related to COVID-19 vaccines.
Authorities are still investigating how she became infected, the CECC said on Saturday.
To date, Taiwan has confirmed a total of 16,737 COVID-19 cases, of which 14,427 were domestic infections reported since May 15, when the country first recorded more than 100 cases in a single day.
With no new deaths reported Sunday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities remains at 848, with all but 12 recorded since May 15. Taiwan last reported a death related to COVID-19 on Nov. 9.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel