COVID-19 Cases In Taiwan Soar, 70 Factory Employees In Taoyuan Test Positive

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JAKARTA - Taiwan experienced a spike in COVID-19 cases on Saturday after 70 employees of an electronics factory in the free trade zone of Taoyuan City, Taiwan, tested positive.

Quoted from Antara, Sunday, January 23, of the 70 positive cases found at the Askey Computer factory under ASUSTeK Computer Inc, 63 of them were migrant workers and the cluster believed to be from two migrant workers.

The two workers had eaten at a restaurant in the city, the Taiwan Epidemic Command Center (CECC) was quoted as saying by local news agencies.

At least 30 factories operating in the industrial area around Taoyuan International Airport were temporarily closed.

Taiwan Labor Minister Hsu Ming Chun was quoted as saying by the CNA News Agency as saying that his office would help carry out mass PCR tests on 50 or more migrant workers as soon as possible, while those with fewer than 50 employees would follow suit.

The Ministry of Labor will also deploy its personnel to provide services to migrant workers via direct dial telephone number 1955 using two languages.

Previously, the CECC found that two migrant workers tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, January 20 after eating with friends at a restaurant in Zhongli District on January 9.

Because both of them live in employee dormitories, in the evening a mass PCR test was carried out on 1,005 employees and 66 of them were positive.

Most positive cases came from that one factory, as reported by Liberty Times Net.

It is not known for certain the number of migrant workers from Indonesia who tested positive in the latest spike in COVID-19 cases in Taiwan, which in the last two months had been free from adding new cases.

Indonesia is the largest contributor of foreign migrant workers in Taiwan with a total of about 290,000 people, both men and women.