TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday (July 13) announced that mask rules will stay in place as a new wave of COVID cases will likely hit Taiwan at some point in September or later when the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant of Omicron is expected to become the dominant strain in the country.
During a press briefing on Wednesday (July 13), a member of the media asked how the CECC is planning to deal with an influx of cases caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. In response, CECC Spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that although the arrival of the new subvariants has caused a new surge in cases in other countries after cases peaked from earlier mutations, the death toll did not rise and even went down.
Chuang pointed out that Taiwanese have received their booster shots within the past six months, more recently than has been the case in other countries struck by Omicron. In addition, Chuang said that from April to the present, BA.2 has been the dominant subvariant in Taiwan.
He said that these are both to Taiwan's advantage when it comes to immunity against new subvariants. Chuang said that BA.4 and BA.5 will have to surpass 30% of local cases before they can start a new wave.
Chuang said that currently there is only a small number of local cases caused by these subvariants. The CECC predicts that it will probably not be until after August or even after September that the new subvariants become dominant and start a new surge in cases.
He predicted that this surge would probably not have that much of an additional effect on Taiwan and called on the public to not be overly concerned. Nevertheless, he called on the public who qualify for the first or second booster shots to go ahead and get the extra jabs.
As for the mask mandate, Chuang said there is no plan to ease the mask regulations. He then asked the public to continue to observe epidemic prevention measures, such as wearing a mask, washing hands frequently, maintaining social distancing, and getting vaccinated as Taiwan faces the current Omicron outbreak and future BA.4 and BA.5 surges.