TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Friday (Feb. 5) confirmed one new domestic case of the Wuhan coronavirus and three imported cases.
Health minister and CECC head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) announced the new local coronavirus case and three imported infections, raising the total number of cases in Taiwan so far to 923. The latest local case is tied to a nurse from the Taoyuan General Hospital, bringing the total for the hospital cluster infection to 20.
Chen said that case no. 942, a Taiwanese woman in her 40s, is a family member of case no. 839, the first nurse in the hospital cluster case, and case no. 870, the nurse's grandmother. After being listed as a contact of both case no. 839 and 870, case no. 942 went into home isolation on Jan. 12.
On Feb. 1, she began to experience a sore throat. Although her quarantine ended on Feb. 3, she did not venture out.
The next day, on Feb. 4, she was given a post-quarantine coronavirus test. She was then diagnosed on Feb. 5.
The health department has not identified any additional contacts in her case beyond cases 839 and 870, who have had their home isolation periods extended until Feb. 18. Case 839 is the live-in partner of case 838, the index patient of the cluster infection and doctor who contracted the disease from case no. 812 — a Taiwanese male coronavirus patient in his 60s — who he was treating in the Taoyuan General Hospital's intensive care unit.
Since the outbreak began, Taiwan has carried out 162,543 COVID-19 tests, with 158,575 coming back negative. Out of the 923 officially confirmed cases, 808 were imported, 76 were local, 36 came from the Navy's "Goodwill Fleet," two were from a cargo pilot cluster, one is an unresolved case, and one (no. 530) was removed as a confirmed case.
Up until now, nine individuals have succumbed to the disease, while 841 have been released from hospital isolation, leaving 73 patients still undergoing treatment in Taiwan.
