Taiwan won't go into lockdown despite Covid surge

Taiwan will not go into a Shanghai-like lock down to control a rise in Covid 19 cases, as the vast majority of those infected have no symptoms or show only minor symptoms, according to the premier, Su Tseng-chang.

Taiwan has been dealing with a spike in local cases since the beginning of the year, but the numbers are small, 18,436 since January 1 for a population of 23 million and just four people have died.

The government has been promoting the new Taiwan model learning to live with the disease and avoiding shutting down the economy, unlike in Shanghai, which is in its third week of a lockdown to control the pandemic.

On Saturday, local authorities in Shanghai reported that 12 people infected with Covid died in the city on Friday, up from 11 the previous day. China's financial hub recorded 20,634 new local asymptomatic coronaviruses on the day, compared to 15,698 a day earlier in the day. There were 2,736 new symptomatic cases, up from 1,931 on Thursday.

The country s national health authority said on Saturday that Mainland China reported 24,411 new Covid cases on Friday. The total number of cases was up from 18,598 a day earlier.

In Taiwan, Su said the government was confident in the steps being taken and that more than 99% of cases were asymptomatic or had mild illness.

He said that we will deal with it gradually and won't be like Shanghai and go into lockdown, but we also won't immediately stop wearing face masks and not take anti-pandemic measures.

The peak is expected to be several weeks off, as the government expects daily cases to reach 10,000 by the end of the month.

Su said that more vaccines and rapid tests are on their way to help cope with the increase in infections and to prepare for the next steps in reopening and reduce the amount of time that people with Covid or their contacts have to spend in quarantine.

The quarantine for all arrivals in Taiwan has been cut from two weeks to 10 days and the government is considering further reductions as it looks to reopen its borders.

Around 80% of Taiwan's population is now double-vaccinated and nearly 60% have had a first booster dose, while mask-wearing mandates remain in place.

Taiwan has reported 47,100 infections since the pandemic began more than two years ago and 856 deaths.