Coronavirus: Taiwan raises alert level for entire island after 267 more local cases reported

Covid-19 has spread to at least five hospitals, including island’s top medical centre, National Taiwan University Hospital

Centres for Disease Control calls for supply of vaccines to be ensured, saying fair access is the ‘ultimate means’ to curb pandemic

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Taiwan has reported 1,291 locally transmitted cases in the past nine days. Photo: AP Photo

Published: 2:13pm, 19 May 2021Updated: 11:20pm, 19 May 2021

Taiwan reported 267 domestic Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, prompting the government to raise the alert for the entire island to level three in a four-tier system and call for fair access to vaccines to cope with its shortage.

Of the new cases, 70 were in Taipei and 129 in New Taipei, with the youngest infected person under five years of age and the oldest over 80, according to Health Minister Chen Shih-chung.

The new cases took the number of locally transmitted infections to 1,291 for the past nine days and to 1,386 since the pandemic began. There were also eight imported cases on Wednesday, taking the combined total to 2,533, with 14 deaths.

Beside the two cities most affected, cases were reported in Taoyuan, Taichung, Changhua, Tainan and Kaohsiung, Chen said.

“With the increase in the number of cities and counties recording new cases, we have decided to raise the alert to level 3 for all of Taiwan,” he said, adding that people must follow the strict anti-pandemic rules and refrain from going to venues where there is a high risk of being infected.

The Central Epidemic Command Centre issued a level 3 alert for Taipei and New Taipei on Saturday.

To handle the spike in infections, Chen said health authorities would from Thursday hold daily meetings to ensure city and county governments were coordinating their efforts to contain the disease and distribute medical resources.