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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Seven imported Omicron cases identified
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung, right, talks to reporters at the legislature in Taipei yesterday. Photo: CNA
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Seven more imported COVID-19 infections have been identified as the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the Central Epidemic Command Center （CECC） said yesterday.
Centers for Disease Control （CDC） Deputy Director-General Philip Lo （羅一鈞）, deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that seven Omicron cases have been detected using genome sequencing to test positive samples from people infected with COVID-19.
The seven bring the number of Omicron cases identified in Taiwan to 12, Lo said.
The seven new cases are three people who arrived from the US, two who arrived from the UK, and one each from Canada and Nigeria, he said.
“The seven new cases of Omicron, along with the previous five cases, have all been fully vaccinated, so they are vaccine breakthrough infections,” he said. “Five among them were asymptomatic, while seven experienced mild symptoms.”
The average interval between when the 12 people received their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and when they tested positive with Omicron was about five months, Lo said, adding that their symptoms, which were mild, included coughing, congestion, a runny nose, headaches and general fatigue, while only one case had a fever.
Among the seven cases reported yesterday, the cycle threshold （CT） values from polymerase chain reaction tests were mostly above 20, although two had values of 14 and 19.1, he said.
The two with lower CT values had mild symptoms — one a runny nose, and the other coughing and general fatigue, he said.
“The symptoms they experienced are similar to a common cold or infection with the Delta variant, so we cannot easily identify an Omicron case by the symptoms,” Lo said. “Testing and genome sequencing are still needed to diagnose COVID-19 and the variant.”
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang （莊人祥）, the CECC’s spokesman, said that there were 14 imported cases yesterday, while there were no new local infections or deaths.
The imported cases were people who arrived from Cambodia, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Vietnam, the UK and the US between Oct. 7 and Sunday.
Two of them arrived in Taiwan long before they tested positive, but they are considered to have presented a low infection risk to local communities, Lo said.
One of the cases is a woman who arrived from Indonesia on Nov. 22 and tested negative during quarantine, but later tested positive with a CT value of 35 in a self-paid test on Monday, he said.
The other case is a man who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Vietnam in July, arrived from Vietnam on Oct. 7 and tested negative during quarantine, but tested positive with a CT value of 36 in a self-paid test on Tuesday, Lo said, adding that both results indicate a previous infection while overseas.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
