New local COVID-19 cases remained at a peak last week, with an average of 245 hospitalized moderate-to-severe cases reported each day, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The average daily number of new hospitalized COVID-19 cases last week was 245, which is about the same as the average of 244 cases per day over the previous week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said, adding that 76.5 percent of the cases involved people aged 65 or older.
The average daily number of deaths was 35 last week, increasing from the average of 28 deaths per day in the week before, CDC data showed.
Photo:CNA
Eighty-nine percent of the people whose deaths were confirmed last week had underlying health conditions and 57 percent had not received a vaccine booster dose.
A total of 34,580 courses of anti-viral drugs were prescribed to vulnerable people with COVID-19 last week, she said, adding that the weekly number is growing.
The COVID-19 positivity rate at residential long-term care facilities also increased to 2.3 percent last week, she added.
Lee said the Omicron XBB subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 was the dominant strain among local and imported cases last week, accounting for 72 percent of the local sequenced cases.
Separately, the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Monday said COVID-19 was the third-biggest cause of death in Taiwan last year, prompting a public health expert to say that the number of excess deaths reflects the government’s failure in disease prevention, citing the availability of drugs and vaccines.
Citing a report in The Economist report, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) yesterday said Taiwan ranked ninth from last worldwide in the number of accumulated “excess” deaths from 2020 to last year with 19,140 such deaths — an average of 80 per 100,000 people.
Citing a report published in The Lancet medical journal, he said some countries in the Western Pacific region, including Taiwan, have had much lower death rates and smaller GDP contractions than other countries during the pandemic.
Having excess deaths does not mean disease prevention and response were a failure, Lo said, adding that the CDC would continue to face the post-pandemic review humbly and sincerely, but the global community does not view Taiwan’s fight against COVID-19 as a failure.
Lee said there were 79,562 hospital visits for flu-like illnesses last week, about the same as the previous week (79,793 visits).
The flu situation in Taiwan is at a plateau, he said, adding that 35 severe flu complications and five flu-related deaths were confirmed.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS