Eleven imported COVID-19 cases previously reported by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) have the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the center said yesterday.
The cases brought the country’s total number of Omicron cases to 27, of which 23 were confirmed over the past week, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division.
The 27 cases are people who arrived from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Eswatini, Germany, Nigeria, the UK and the US, Lo told a daily news briefing in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of the CECC
Arrivals from the US accounted for the largest number of cases at 12, he added.
All 27 people had been fully vaccinated with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and had been on average infected with the disease 4.98 months after their second shot, he said.
Twelve received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, five Moderna and four AstraZeneca, while six received doses from two different brands, he said.
While 13 of the cases did not show symptoms, 14 experienced only mild symptoms such as a cough or headache, Lo said.
The center also reported 20 new COVID-19 cases, all imported, and zero deaths.
The new cases involve 13 Taiwanese and seven foreigners, who entered Taiwan between Nov. 21 and Wednesday, from Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, the US and Vietnam, it said.
All except one were classified as breakthrough infections, it added.
As of Thursday, the nation’s first-dose COVID-19 vaccination rate was 79.72 percent, with the full vaccination rate at 66.5 percent.
Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institution, was fined NT$150,000 for failing to implement safety procedures, including not wearing proper protective gear while conducting experiments, which led to a researcher at a laboratory handling COVID-19 to become infected with the virus earlier this month, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said.
Separately, a person confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 visited Taipei’s Raohe Night Market (饒河夜市), prompting the tourist hot spot to close for disinfection, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday, adding that the market would be closed until this afternoon.
The Taipei City Government said that the cycle threshold value of the person’s polymerase chain reaction test was 35, indicating they had been infected for a while and were most likely less infectious.
The department said the person was being classified as an imported case, who underwent testing to travel after being released from quarantine.
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