TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The number of daily COVID-19 infections could drop to 10,000 or even lower in late July or early August, a senior hospital manager said Saturday (July 16).

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported 25,251 new local transmissions Saturday, with 72 deaths and 45 imported cases. Taiwan reached a record single-day amount of 94,808 local cases announced on May 27.

The number was falling during weekends and rising again during the middle of the week, but in late July or early August, the figure might fall to somewhat above 10,000, or even better, drop below 10,000, said Chiu Cheng-hsun (邱政洵), vice president of the Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

While the threat posed by the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of the Omicron variant was real and unavoidable, infected people would not show symptoms as grave as during previous COVID infections, he said. CECC officials have voiced concern that the number of infections might rise again in August as more BA.5 cases emerged.

Chiu recommended that people who had not received COVID vaccines yet, should quickly go and get their shots, while maintaining basic preventive standards, the Liberty Times reported.