Breakdown of Taiwan's COVID-19 cases

Infographic: CNA

Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) have released a new infographic showing the breakdown of all the COVID-19 cases that are currently confirmed in Taiwan. As of the 25th February 2020, there are 32 confirmed cases, with the most recent case being a foreign caregiver who was taking care of patient 27.

As is clear on the infographic, the last nine confirmed cases, the source of infection is unknown. This is a worrying turn of events, because until case 24, the Centre for Disese Control (CDC) mostly managed to locate the original source of infection for the majority of cases.

For now, the last 9 infections are at least all infected, in a case that is determined a 'family cluster' but the worry is it may turn into 'community infection'. How these two differentiate is that a 'family cluster' is infections spreading through families only, but on the other hand a 'community cluster' is a host of cases spreading through a whole community, like what has been seen in the cult church in South Korea, which shows how tragic a 'community cluster' can end up. South Korea had 51 confirmed cases this time last week, then after a 'community cluster' confirmed cases in South Korea are now over 1000 and increasing each day.

This shows how quickly the virus is spreading once it gets into the community. Therefore the major concern regarding the last 9 cases are that the CDC cannot locate the source of this families' infection. What does this mean for Taiwan? Does that mean the virus is already spreading in the community already? If so we could see cases increase daily.

What apparently bumped the infection numbers in Korea, and Italy was a super spreader. This is someone with a high viral load, who infects more people than the median. If the coronavirus is spreading in Taiwan (because it has been reported that people can have no symptoms but be infected) all it would take for the numbers to blast up like Korea and Italy would be one of these super spreaders.

In my opinion, the virus has broke past the CDC's superb efforts in Taiwan to keep the Coronavirus out, but people getting infected without knowing where from is a big red flag which is a major concern.