Blog

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has detected the first local cases of the Omicron BA.2.75 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2, it said yesterday, as it forecast that daily caseloads could fall next week.
Genome sequencing showed that three out of 64 local cases tested had the BA.2.75 subvariant, while one had the BA.2 subvariant and 60, or 94 percent, had the BA.5 subvariant, which remains the dominant strain in Taiwan, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy director of the CECC’s medical response division.
The BA.2.75 cases, the first detected so far in Taiwan, are a woman in her 40s and her two children who live in northern Taiwan, he said.
Photo: Screen grab from CECC livestream
They have not traveled abroad recently and are reinfection cases, he said.
The BA.2.75 strain has been spreading since July, but only accounts for fewer than 10 percent of new infections worldwide, Lo said, adding that the center is more concerned about other new Omicron subvariants, such as XBB and BQ.1.
Five of 21 imported cases sequenced last week had XBB, while two had BQ.1, he said.
Lo said that the BQ.1 strain accounts for about 23 percent of new infections globally and more than half of the new infections in the US, while the XBB strain is often detected in imported cases, possibly because it is spreading in neighboring Southeast Asian countries.
The five XBB cases were from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, and the BQ.1 cases came from the US and Sweden, he said.
The sequencing showed that imported BA.5 cases fell to 48 percent, while XBB accounted for 24 percent, BA.2.75 accounted for 19 percent and BQ.1 accounted for 9 percent, he said.
The center is monitoring the growth of new subvariants, but is unable to predict which would become dominant, he said.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the center, said that 104,451 new local cases were confirmed last week, which is an 18.6 percent decline from the previous week.
Based on the center’s simulations, it expects daily caseloads to fall to fewer than 10,000, although case numbers would likely still fluctuate day to day, he said.
Wang said it was unlikely that the center would soon shorten its “5+n” policy of five days of mandatory home isolation followed by up to seven days of self-health management for confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The risk of confirmed cases spreading the virus is still high within five days, and many countries still require confirmed cases to isolate for five to seven days, he said.
The CECC reported 10,583 new local cases, 76 imported cases and 41 deaths yesterday.
VOTERS’ CHOICE: The DPP’s Chen and independent candidate Huang conceded defeat before 7:20pm, with Chiang pledging to remain humble and do his best Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday won the Taipei mayoral election, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate defeating the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) pick, former minister of health and welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), and former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), an independent. After polling stations closed at 4pm, the Taipei Election Commission issued a preliminary estimate that voter turnout in the city was about 64 percent, slightly lower than in 2018. Chiang, 43, is to be the youngest Taipei mayor ever, with the KMT regaining the capital after eight years. Chen had an exceptionally high national approval rating when he was head
A naval landing craft on Thursday sank near Kinmen County after wet weather and rough seas flooded its cabin, the Naval Fleet Command said. The vessel, called Landing Craft Mechanized 1326, had completed transport and replenishment missions in the county and was returning to Taiwan proper when surging waves flooded the cabin, the navy said in a statement. The craft’s five crew members tried to bail out the water to no avail, the Navy said. The landing craft eventually sank off Kinmen’s Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣) at 5:18pm, although all crew members rescued, it said, adding that the precise cause of the sinking
FAMILY BACKGROUND: Chiang was effective in running a cautious campaign to avoid making mistakes, waiting for other candidates to slip up, an analyst said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei Mayor-elect Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) stood out among his rivals due to his energy, his die-hard supporters and his relative openness to discuss issues such as same-sex marriage, a political analyst said yesterday. Chiang’s campaign was also aided by his family’s background in politics, which helped him garner greater support in Taipei where there is a large KMT base, said the analyst, who chose to remain anonymous. “Chiang is also not a typical KMT member when it comes to certain issues, such as gay marriage, and his more open stance widened his support base — particularly among young
TOURIST HOTSPOT: The air charter services would drastically cut travel time to the world-renowned beach with its service to Caticlan, instead of Kalibo Royal Air Philippines is to launch next month direct flights between Taiwan and the Philippine city of Caticlan, a closer entry point to tourist hotspot Boracay. The airline will initially offer six charter flights between Dec. 26 and Jan. 15, with the flight frequency increasing to one per day during the Lunar New Year and winter holidays from Jan. 19 to Feb. 8, it announced at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. The charter flight services will drastically cut travel time to Boracay to about two hours and 45 minutes. Before the new route is launched, travelers from Taiwan who

source