According to the Central Epidemic Command Center which oversees the island’s pandemic response, the passenger was a Taiwanese woman aged in her 30s. She returned home Dec. 8. All passengers who were near her on the plane have been negative.
Ten new cases of coronavirus were reported in Taiwan on Saturday. All 10 cases were confirmed by travelers who entered Taiwan from abroad.
The island, which is self-governing, has placed a strict quarantine of two weeks upon arrival. It has closed its borders to citizens and residents with few exceptions. It has seen very little transmission to the disease within its borders and restrictions on movement in recent months have been minimal. Nearly everyone wears a mask.
The World Health Organization has designated the Omicron variant a “variant in concern”, but scientists are still trying to figure out how it compares with the dominant delta variant in terms both of transmissibility, severity.
Taiwan reported total 16,731 COVID-19 deaths and 848 cases.
