Coronavirus shadow continues to loom over Taiwan

Taiwan is likely to see a new peak of coronavirus infections as 583 locally found Covid-19 patients and 17 new deaths were reported on Thursday.

"The signs suggest that the situation might be getting worse," Chen Shih-chung, the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) chief, told a news conference, citing a recent cluster infection among migrant workers at King Yuan Electronics in Miaoli, in central Taiwan.

Taiwan on Thursday urgently conducted coronavirus tests for more than 7,000 employees of the company after dozens of Covid-19 patients were found there. Chen said the cluster will be closely monitored as known hotspots are only in northern Taiwan.

In addition, Chen said the latest data shows that one fourth of the new infection cases are aged from 20 to 39.

Chen strongly encouraged people to stay where they are and avoid returning to their home towns during the coming three-day Dragon Boat Festival break starting 12 June.

The locally transmitted cases announced by the CECC on Thursday include 364 new domestically transmitted coronavirus cases and 219 ones belonging to the last few days. 

17 new deaths

In addition, 17 new related deaths were announced.

Since the pandemic began, Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people, has confirmed a total of 9,974 cases, including 8,778 locally transmitted cases. The related death toll reached 166 on Thursday.

Regarding Japan's decision to provide 30 million AstraZeneca doses to both Taiwan and the global COVAX platform in late June, Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang expressed appreciation on Thursday, adding that Taiwan's large-scale Covid-19 vaccination program will be  launched soon.

So far, about 2% of residents of Taiwan have been vaccinated.