Taiwan added another 17 local cases on Monday. Fourteen were in connection to a cluster at a Taoyuan restaurant. One of them is a restaurant employee, and eight are diners who were at the restaurant on Jan. 7 and Jan. 9. Another five cases are relatives, coworkers and a roommate of diners who were previously diagnosed. Officials noted that the three remaining cases of the day were not connected to any of the clusters already known. Let’s hear from the CECC.

Chen Shih-chung
CECC head
The three unconnected cases are as follows. One is a nurse at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital. So far all her close contacts and people in her ward have tested negative. She doesn’t work in a COVID ward, so we will carry out genetic sequencing to determine the source of her infection. Another case is the boyfriend of an infected nurse at the Renai Branch of the Taipei City Hospital. He tested negative on his first test. But a test done during isolation turned positive. This case’s risk to the community is quite small. The other case is a man who was involved in a traffic accident on Sunday and was taken for treatment at Taoyuan General Hospital. He had to get hospitalized, so a test was carried out. Results came back positive, and we’re carrying further tests to determine whether it’s an old infection. He tested negative for N-protein antibodies, but his CT value was very high at 32.

The nurse at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital had recently visited places including the National Taiwan Science Education Center and the Taipei Children’s Amusement Park in Taipei’s Shilin District. The nurse was at these venues on Jan. 13, the same day as a large number of schoolchildren who were there on a field trip. Taipei has identified 834 people at five schools as contacts who will need to undergo testing.