CORONAVIRUS/Taiwan reports one new domestic COVID-19 case from hospital

Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) Taiwan on Saturday reported one new domestic COVID-19 case, a nurse working in the same hospital in northern Taiwan with a doctor who was diagnosed with the disease earlier this week.

This is the second COVID-19 case linked to the doctor.

The nurse in her 20s who had contact with the doctor at the hospital on Jan. 10 tested positive in a test taken Jan. 15 after she developed a sore and itchy throat a day earlier, according to Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

She had initially tested negative for COVID-19 on Jan. 11 along with 467 other people who had contact with the doctor or his girlfriend, also a nurse working in the same hospital who was infected by the doctor.

Among these 467 people, 265 are employees of the hopital and will take a second test Sunday, the CECC said.

Another 452 contacts who were tested on Friday had negative results, Chen said, who again would not specify the name of the hospital.

Meanwhile, Chen said a total of 22 doctors who had contact with the latest infected nurse this past week will be placed in isolation in the hospital for seven days. More than 30 nurses who had contact with the new case will be required to undergo home quarantine.

Saturday's case was the fourth domestically transmitted COVID-19 case in Taiwan since April 12, 2020.

The doctor, who helps treat COVID-19 patients in the hospital, developed symptoms of the disease on Jan. 8 and tested positive on Tuesday, becoming the first doctor in Taiwan to be confirmed with the disease, according to the CECC.

CECC officials said the doctor probably contracted the disease while treating a severe case of COVID-19 and later infected his live-in girlfriend. She also tested positive on Tuesday.

(By Chang Ming-hsuan, Chen Chih-chung and Frances Huang) enditem/ls