TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – Health authorities in Taiwan are quarantining 5,000 people while searching for the source of two new coronavirus cases linked to a hospital.
Officials said on Monday that they were unable to find out how the husband and wife became infected after a short hospital stay at Taoyuan General Hospital, located in Taoyuan city, just outside Taiwan’s capital. The man was hospitalized for three days due to health problems unrelated to COVID-19, while his wife took care of him.
Those quarantined include patients discharged from the hospital January 6-19 and their caregivers.
Taiwan is more alert after the latest domestic cluster, which has now seen 15 cases from the hospital in Taoyuan.
Taiwan is being praised for its swift and persistent efforts to contain COVID-19, with only seven deaths and fewer than 900 confirmed cases, despite its proximity to China, where the pandemic started.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Health authorities in Thailand reported 959 new cases of coronavirus infection, a daily record expected after proactive mass testing began in a province that was the center of the country’s largest outbreak. The total announced Tuesday includes 914 cases announced the previous day in Samut Sakhon province alone, after health authorities began testing up to 10,000 people per day for a week. Most of the cases confirmed in Samut Sakhon involved migrants from Myanmar working in fisheries and factories. Thailand has confirmed 14,644 cases, including 75 deaths since the first case in January last year. More than 10,000 of the total have been recorded since December 15, when the Samut Sakhon outbreak was discovered and a second cluster related to gambling caves was discovered.
– Chinese airlines are offering refunded tickets as the corona virus continues to spread in the Northeast. Tuesday’s offer from the government’s aviation authority comes amid an effort to stop people from traveling during the Lunar New Year holidays next month. China has largely curbed the spread of the virus at the local level, but where outbreaks have been detected, travel restrictions remain in place, including in the capital Beijing. Schools have a break a week early and migrant workers have been told not to travel back to their hometowns. The country’s death toll from COVID-19 rose by one to 4,636 from 89,197 cases, the National Health Commission reported, with most new cases in the Northeast where winter temperatures are well below freezing. The National Health Commission reported 53 new cases in Heilongjiang Province on Tuesday, with another seven in Jilin Province just south. Beijing and the Shanghai business center have both reported two new cases.
Health authorities in New Zealand said they have found no evidence that the coronavirus is spreading in the community after confirming the first case outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months. The woman developed symptoms at home after apparently being infected by a fellow traveler during the mandatory quarantine. COVID-19 Response Secretary Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday that 15 of the woman’s 16 close contacts identified have been tested negative, with one result still pending. New Zealand has eliminated community transmission of the virus, at least for now.