Taiwanese man contracts coronavirus in China, despite 'zero' case claims

儘管宣稱“零”病例，台灣男子仍在中國感染冠狀病毒

Taiwanese man develops symptoms on CCP's National Day, despite China's constant claim of 'zero' local cases


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday (Oct. 13) announced one new imported case of coronavirus (COVID-19) from communist China, the source of the pandemic.

During a press conference on Tuesday, CECC Spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) announced one imported coronavirus infection, raising the total number of cases in Taiwan to 530. The latest case, Case No. 530, is a Taiwanese man in his 40s who went to work in Jiangsu, China, in February and returned to China on Oct. 11.

The CECC stated that on Oct. 1, China's National Day, the man began to experience a runny nose and sputum. He did not seek local medical treatment and purchased over-the-counter medication for his symptoms.

In addition, two of his coworkers also experienced cold-like symptoms and eschewed medical attention in favor of taking store-bought medication. On Oct. 11, he took a flight to Taiwan for a vacation.

When he arrived in Taiwan that day, he told quarantine officers that he was suffering from a cough, runny nose, and nasal congestion. Quarantine staff administered a test for COVID-19 on the man before dispatching him to his quarantine location.

On Oct. 13, he tested positive for the virus and was placed in a hospital isolation ward. The CECC said that the health unit has identified 17 people who came in contact with the man during his flight to Taiwan, including 10 passengers who sat in the rows directly in front of and behind him, as well as seven crew members.

The 10 passengers were told to begin home isolation, while the seven crew members, who did not enter the country, were asked to start self-health monitoring as they had been deemed to have been wearing adequate protective equipment.

Chuang said that the Ct value from the patient's polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is low at 26, indicating that he was infected recently while in China. Case No. 530 is Taiwan's first confirmed imported coronavirus infection from China since Feb. 6 of this year, over eight months ago.

Despite the fact that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic originated in China, its vast size, and huge population, the communist regime claimed that it had gone 57 days without a single local infection since Aug. 15, before finally acknowledging 12 local cases on Oct. 11. As was the case in previous outbreaks in Xingjiang, Beijing, Yunnan, Wuhan, and Jilin since the original epidemic, China has announced it will test nine million in the affected region, yet the results of such tests are never released in detail and positive cases are rarely if ever announced.

China's statistics on its confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths have been placed under much doubt as they have been suspiciously low for such a populous country, currently in 49th place behind Portugal and ahead of Ethiopia. The speed with which China went from initially announcing human-to-human transmissions on Jan. 20 to declaring "zero" local infections on March 19 also raises many questions about the authenticity of China's reporting.

Prior to the latest outbreak in Qingdao, many experts questioned the wisdom of China's decision to unleash 600 million tourists during its Golden Week with the pandemic raging. The infection of the Taiwanese man on China's National Day could indicate many other infections may also be taking place, including in areas not recently having been reported as having active outbreaks, such as Jiangsu Province.

Taiwan's CECC on Monday did not announce any new reports of people with suspected symptoms. Since the outbreak began, Taiwan has carried out 97,166 COVID-19 tests, with 96,055 coming back negative.

Out of the 530 confirmed cases, 438 were imported, 55 were local, 36 came from the Navy's "Goodwill Fleet," and one was the unresolved case of a Belgian engineer who arrived in early May to work on a wind farm project in Changhua County. Up until now, seven individuals have succumbed to the disease, while 489 have been released from hospital isolation, leaving 34 patients still undergoing treatment in Taiwan.