《TAIPEI TIMES》 Island link travelers show 19％ COVID-19 positivity

CHINA RETURNEES: About 22% of travelers arriving on flights from China have also tested positive, while local infections are expected to fluctuate broadly, the CECC said

By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

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Seven of 37 travelers from China who arrived yesterday by boat on the first day of the partially resumed “small three links” tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Kinmen County, the Central Epidemic Command Center （CECC） said, as it reported 24,132 new local cases and 61 deaths.

As the “small three links” were partly restored for residents of Kinmen and Matsu, allowing them to travel directly to and from China on designated flights and ferries from yesterday to Feb. 6, the first ferry departed from Kinmen yesterday morning to pick up 37 residents from Xiamen in China.

Seven, or 18.9 percent, of the passengers tested positive, said Centers for Disease Control （CDC） Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang （莊人祥）, who is the CECC spokesperson.

Among 1,284 passengers that arrived on flights from China at three airports in Taiwan on Thursday, 286 people, or 22.3 percent, tested positive for COVID-19.

The temporary COVID-19 testing program for arrivals from China took effect on Sunday last week, with a positivity rate in the first five days of 21 percent, he said.

The center yesterday reported 24,132 new local infections, 290 imported cases and 61 deaths from the disease. The local caseload is 6 percent lower than that of Saturday last week.

Daily local case numbers are likely to rise or fall rapidly over the next few weeks, given low natural immunity rates throughout the nation, Chuang said.

Of the 61 deaths reported yesterday, 55 people had cancer or other underlying health conditions, 35 people had not received a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — including 26 who received no doses — and 32 were aged 80 or older, CECC data showed.

The youngest among the deaths was a man in his 30s who underwent heart surgery when he was a child and had received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. He died at home seven days after the onset of symptoms.

He experienced a sore throat, cough with phlegm and runny nose on Dec. 25, and was diagnosed with COVID-19 by a clinic. He was placed under home isolation until Dec. 30, but was found in a coma at home on Sunday last week and declared to have had cardiopulmonary failure and COVID-19 infection after being taken to a hospital for emergency treatment.

The CECC said that 71,246 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including 62,152 doses of Moderna’s bivalent booster, were administered on Friday.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES