The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday confirmed two more cases linked to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, bringing the total number of cases in the cluster to 14.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the two new local infections, an airport worker and a disease prevention taxi driver, are both in their 50s.
Case No. 17,414 is an airport security guard, who had throat discomfort, mild nasal congestion and a runny nose on Wednesday, but she was only tested in expanded testing on Friday, after another security guard — case No. 17,371 — tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, Chen said, adding that her test result came back positive yesterday.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The other local case — No. 17,415 — is a disease prevention taxi driver, who tested negative on Tuesday, but he was tested again on Friday and the result came back positive yesterday, Chen said.
Fourteen confirmed COVID-19 cases associated with Taoyuan airport have been reported since Monday: seven airport janitors, two airport security guards, two disease prevention taxi drivers, two members of the Golden Voice Social Club, which an infected janitor visited, and a family member of the two social club members.
Chen said data collected from contact tracing and testing suggest “there is more than one chain of infections ... at the airport,” so the CECC’s on-site airport command center has expanded the testing to include all frontline workers at the airport.
Excluding the janitors, security guards and disease prevention taxi drivers who were tested in the past week, about 9,000 airport frontline workers were to undergo polymerase chain reaction testing starting yesterday, he said, adding that if any of them test positive, the testing would be expanded to include non-frontline airport workers.
Recent inspections have found that most airport workers follow the infection control operational procedures, but there are some minor flaws in their actions that could increase the risk of virus transmission, so a team has been sent to the airport to help them improve their disease prevention measures, Chen said.
The team consists of 24 nurses, who can supervise workers regarding safety practices such as preventing unnecessary contact, changing protective gear, hand washing and disinfection measures, he said.
Meanwhile, genome sequencing found that virus samples from two previous cases — No. 17,238 and No. 17,239, two janitors — were identical to a virus sample from an imported case who arrived on Dec. 24 last year, Chen said.
The imported case had used a bathroom at the baggage claim area where case No. 17,238 worked, and the two janitors took the same shuttle bus to and from work, along with three other infected janitors, he said.
However, another janitor — case No. 17,307 — was the first among them to experience symptoms, and she also worked at the baggage claim area, but her virus sample was still undergoing genome sequencing, so the possible link between the cases remained unclear.
Forty-two imported cases were reported by the CECC yesterday, including 23 from the US, four from Vietnam, two from France, one each from 11 further countries and two that are under investigation.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese