The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 22 imported cases of COVID-19 — 20 migrant workers from Indonesia and two from the Philippines.
Of the Indonesians, 17 were diagnosed with COVID-19 after the CECC tested all Indonesian migrant workers who entered Taiwan between Nov. 28 and Thursday in an extended testing project, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a news conference.
The tests, conducted on Friday, screened all 642 Indonesian workers staying in centralized quarantine facilities, he said, adding that only two of the 17 who tested positive showed symptoms during quarantine.
An Indonesian man in his 30s who came to Taiwan for work on Nov. 18 did not show symptoms while in the nation, but tested positive in a paid-out-of-pocket test after ending his quarantine at a hotel, Chen said.
An Indonesian woman in her 30s who arrived on Nov. 12 for work tested negative before completing centralized quarantine on Nov. 25, but tested positive in a paid test on Sunday, he said.
The two cases from the Philippines are a woman and a man, both in their 20s, who came to Taiwan for work on Nov. 11 and Nov. 20 respectively, Chen said.
The woman first tested negative at the end of centralized quarantine on Nov. 24, but later tested positive in a paid test on Friday, while the man tested positive upon completing centralized quarantine on Saturday, he said.
The last case confirmed yesterday is an Indonesian man in his 40s who arrived in Taiwan on Nov. 20 and stayed in a quarantine hotel, and tested positive in a paid-out-of-pocket test on Saturday, he added.
On Saturday at about 9:30pm, Chen called an impromptu news conference to give an update on the progress in the contact tracing of a previously confirmed case reported on Friday — case No. 688, a migrant worker.
The Indonesian woman in her 30s arrived in Taiwan on Nov. 13, provided a negative COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result from within three days prior to her departure, and tested negative before ending centralized quarantine on Nov. 28.
She stayed in her recruitment agency’s dormitory on Nov. 29 and Monday last week, and tested positive on Tuesday.
The CECC on Saturday said that 47 migrant workers who stayed in the same dormitory were recalled to centralized quarantine facilities on Friday and underwent COVID-19 testing.
Chen on Saturday night said one of the workers, a Vietnamese woman, went missing after leaving her employer’s home on Wednesday and that the National Police Agency was searching for her, adding that the tests conducted on the 46 recalled workers returned one positive result — case No. 695.
While case No. 695 stayed in the same dormitory as case No. 688 on Nov. 29, she moved to another dormitory on Monday last week and stayed there until Friday, so a close contact who stayed in the same room with her at the second dormitory was also recalled to a centralized quarantine facility and tested, he said.
The National Immigration Agency yesterday morning said that it and the police agency earlier in the day had found the missing Vietnamese woman in a private apartment in Taipei, where she was staying with another female Vietnamese migrant worker.
At the CECC news conference yesterday afternoon, Chen said that both women tested negative and were put under centralized quarantine.
As cases 688 and 695 tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and their PCR cycle threshold values were relatively high, the center considers them to be imported cases, he said.
“As of yesterday, the contact tracing and testing of people associated with case No. 688 and extended cases are considered completely under control,” he said.
Among the 135 confirmed cases of COVID-19 who are hospitalized in the nation, 93 are Indonesian workers, Chen said.
As many cases have shown that infected individuals can sometimes test positive and sometimes negative, self-isolation and home quarantine are still necessary, he added.
In related news, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that the city has three layers of defense for COVID-19 prevention.
The first layer is home quarantine, including staying at quarantine hotels and short-term rental suites, Ko said.
If a person were to break quarantine, the city’s departments of health, civil affairs and environmental protection would work together to trace and find them as soon as possible, which is the second layer, he said.
“If these fail, then wide-scale prevention measures at the community level would be launched, including banning meal gatherings,” which would be the third layer, Ko said.
If tighter prevention measures are taken, including banning large events, people’s livelihood would be affected and the nation’s GDP growth would be impacted, he said.
The missing Vietnamese migrant worker was found through the city’s second layer of defense, so the third layer did not have to be implemented yet, he said.
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