TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday said the current wave of COVID cases is entering a plateau and is expected to subside by August.

CDC spokesperson Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) said that from June 8 to 14, there were 66,951 outpatient and emergency visits for COVID, marking a 6.2% decrease from the previous week, per UDN. He added there were 144 new severe cases and 38 new deaths.

Lo said most severe cases and fatalities occurred in people over the age of 65, with more than 80% of those individuals having not received this season’s COVID vaccine.

After nine consecutive weeks of increases, the domestic outbreak peaked last week, he said. In the first four days of this week, outpatient and emergency visits declined slightly by 7% to 8% compared to the same period last week.

Lo said the outbreak is now entering a plateau phase and is expected to continue through the week of July 27 to Aug. 2, after which it will likely begin to decline.

From May 25 to Aug. 2, the CDC estimates there will have been approximately 420,000 outpatient visits related to COVID.

The dominant variant currently circulating in Taiwan is NB.1.8.1, which is also the predominant strain in China, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Globally, COVID positivity rates have increased in recent weeks across all regions except Africa. The most prevalent variant worldwide is LP.8.1, followed by NB.1.8.1.