Taoyuan Armed Forces General Hospital

On March 23, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported an average of 109 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 (complications) per day from March 21 to 23, a time period after relaxed epidemic prevention measures became effective on March 20. All of these cases were domestic. This average number of moderate to severe cases per day was slightly lower than the daily average of 119 cases in the month prior to the implementation of the new epidemic prevention scheme. The CECC also reported an average of 34 deaths per day in the last week (March 17-23), a number that was lower than the daily average of 41 deaths in the previous week (March 10-16). Of these COVID-19 deaths, 92% of the deceased had chronic diseases, 69% had not received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 92% were 60 years of age or older.

The CECC pointed out that there were a total of 81 cases of Omicron subvariants detected over the last week. Of these cases, 27 were domestic, including 20 cases of BA.2.75, two cases of BA.2, two cases of BA.5, one case of BF.7, one case of BQ.1, and one case of XBB (XBB.1.5), and the other 54 cases were imported, including 29 cases of BA.2.75, 23 cases of XBB (10 of which are XBB.1.5), one case of BA.2, and one case of BQ.1. The dominant strain circulating in Taiwan remains to be BA.2.75, followed by BA.2 and BA.5. A cumulative total of 30 cases of XBB.1.5 have been confirmed, of which three are domestic and 27 are imported.