The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday confirmed one death from COVID-19, bringing the total to 11 since the outbreak began, and one new imported case.
The person, who died on Friday, was a Taiwanese in his 60s with a chronic illness, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman, told a news conference.
The man, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 24, about five days after showing symptoms, was one of the 21 people who contracted the disease in a cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, Chuang said.
His condition deteriorated after he was admitted to the hospital, Chuang said, adding that he was put on a respirator and an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine.
Eventually, his condition improved and he was removed from isolation on Feb. 22 after he was deemed to no longer be infectious, but he remained at the hospital to be treated for other diseases, Chuang said.
He was taken off the ECMO machine on March 17, but began experiencing shortness of breath, low blood pressure and serious arrhythmia on Thursday, Chuang said, adding that he died the next day from pneumonia complicated by septic shock.
One imported case from the US was also reported yesterday.
The case is a Taiwanese in her 20s, who returned home on April 3 with a negative COVID-19 test report issued within three days of her flight, Chuang said, adding that she reported having no symptoms upon arrival.
However, while in home quarantine, she developed a cough, a runny nose and nasal congestion, diarrhea and a partial loss of smell, and she was confirmed as having COVID-19 yesterday after being tested on April 9, Chuang said.
He said that 18 people who came in contact with her on her flight have been identified.
Three of them were seated within two rows of her, and they have been asked to isolate at home.
The others were cabin crew members who have all since left Taiwan, Chuang said, adding that the CECC would report the situation through the International Health Regulations (IHR) mechanism.
The new COVID-19 case has brought the total number of cases in Taiwan to 1,057, of whom 24 are being treated in isolation wards.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching