TAIWAN COVID DEATH TOLL RISES

Taiwan saw an unprecedented jump in its coronavirus-related death toll from 17 to 23 on Sunday, May 23, 2021, as the island continued to battle a domestic outbreak not seen since the start of the pandemic, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

On Sunday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced 287 new domestically-transmitted coronavirus cases and added 170 to the total from the last seven days.

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said financial assistance will be given to institutions to boost their testing capacity. He said the administration process of reporting new cases had been simplified.

Taiwan has been relatively successful in containing the coronavirus in 2020 with a 253-day-long case-free period ending in late December. But since a new outbreak was reported in early May in northern Taiwan, whose origin is not yet clear, thousands have contracted COVID-19.

Most of them have the variant that first emerged in Britain. Sixty-eight critically ill patients are attached to breathing devices and life support, the CECC said on Sunday.

As of Sunday, Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people, had confirmed a total of 4,322 cases since the pandemic began, including 3,158 locally transmitted cases.

WEEKLY FEATURE : TRUEMONEY PHILIPPINES BUCKS THE COVID-19 CHALLENGE