Taipei-The COVID-19 mortality rate in Taiwan has climbed to 0.105 percent this year, due to a surge in domestic cases, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Thursday, as it explained its new system for calculating deaths from the disease.
Taiwan has recorded 2,731 deaths from COVID-19 so far this year, including 1,063 between June 3 and 9, and 863 the previous week, according to the CECC.
On Thursday, the daily death toll rose to a record 211, CECC data showed.
According to CECC data, Taiwan’s COVID-19 death rate as of May 19 was 0.04 percent.
However, the COVID-19 morality rate among infected people this year has now increased to 0.105 percent, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (???), who heads the CECC, said Thursday.
The current mortality rate reflects the surge in domestic COVID-19 cases that began in April, as some of the deaths occurring now are among people who became infected earlier in the outbreak, which is now on the decline, according to Chen.
It cannot yet be determined whether Taiwan’s mortality rate is climbing faster than that of other countries, he said at the CECC’s daily press briefing.
Chou Jih-haw (???), head of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control, said at the briefing that the CECC is now using new criteria for defining COVID-19 deaths.
Up to the end of 2021, anyone who had tested positive for COVID-19 and died was listed as a COVID-19 death, he said.
This year, however, COVID-19 deaths are being listed only as those that can be directly attributed to the disease, Chou said.
As of June 8, the deaths of 553 people who had COVID-19 were ruled as unrelated to the disease itself, according to Chou.
He said that 39 of them were either suicide or accidents, and in 227 cases, COVID-19 was not listed as the cause of death on the death certificates.
Another 16 people had passed away long after they contracted COVID-19, and 271 had COVID-19 listed under the “other” category on their death certificates, Chou said. In those cases, doctors had looked at the medical history and determined that the deaths were unrelated to COVID-19, he added.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel