TAIPEI • All schools in Taiwan will close from today until May 28 as the island reported two deaths in the latest wave of outbreak even as the rate of increase in Covid-19 cases slowed slightly. Taiwan reported 240 new domestic cases yesterday, a drop from the 333 cases on Monday.
The island has reported almost 1,000 new domestic infections during the past week, leading to new curbs in the capital, Taipei, and shocking a population that had become accustomed to life carrying on almost normally, with the pandemic well under control.
Education Minister Pan Wen-chung told reporters that starting today, all schools across the island would be closed until May 28, with classes held online.
At the same news conference, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung announced two deaths, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 14.
Dr Chen cautioned that the smaller increase in cases did not mean the virus had been brought under control. "We don't view this with optimism," he added. However, most of the cases being reported were mild ones, he said.
The government has said that those with mild infections or who are asymptomatic can recover at home under quarantine.
The domestic cases have been concentrated in northern Taiwan and are connected to an earlier outbreak among airline pilots and a hotel at Taipei's main international airport, though the government is not sure of the exact chain of transmission. Taiwan has reported a total of 2,260 infections since the start of the pandemic.
One of the patients who died yesterday was an 86-year-old man with multiple chronic diseases. He was the first person to die of the disease since domestically transmitted cases began spiking in late April, local media reported.
The other patient who died was a woman in her 60s.
The 86-year-old man was among a cluster of infections at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in New Taipei City, the hospital said, adding that two of its nurses had tested positive for Covid-19 during its second round of screenings.
The two nurses are under quarantine in isolation wards. The hospital is scheduled to conduct its third round of screenings today. The two new infections mean the hospital cluster now has 11 cases, with one death.
By Monday, seven hospitals in Taiwan had reported confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to the island's disease monitoring agency.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is mobilising its diplomatic corps to secure a speedier delivery of Covid-19 vaccines - a quest that has become more urgent since a sudden rise in domestic cases. Less than 1 per cent of its population is inoculated.
Taiwan, a major semiconductor manufacturing hub, has received only about 300,000 shots so far for its more than 23 million people. The shots - all from AstraZeneca - are rapidly running out.
In comments published yesterday by Taiwan's official Central News Agency, Taipei's top official in Washington Hsiao Bi-khim said she was in talks with the United States for a share of the Covid-19 vaccine doses that President Joe Biden plans to send abroad.
Mr Biden has said the US would send at least 20 million more vaccine doses abroad by the end of June.
REUTERS, XINHUA
