In an announcement now making headlines across the world, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday announced that no new COVID-19 infections were recorded.
1,206 possible cases of the virus were ‘submit(ted) for inspection’ according to the CDC homepage.
49,748 tests have been carried out according to official figures on the CECC homepage.
Of those, 46,329 have been confirmed as negative, with 393 proving positive for the virus. Six people have died of COVID-19 related issues.
Speaking to the gathered media, Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung who is also the head of the CECC said “For the first time since March 9th, I am happy to say that we recorded no new cases. The pandemic has not stopped so we shouldn’t let our guard down, but this is still something to be happy about.”
Of the 393 cases of the virus confirmed in Taiwan to date, 338 have proven to be ‘imported’ with confirmed origins overseas, whilst only 55 are listed by the CECC as having been contracted locally.
As Taiwan celebrates this milestone, the number of those infected by the virus around the world continues to rise.
At time of writing, statistics show 1,998,111 cases of the virus to have been confirmed with 126,604 deaths.
Almost half a million people are reported as now having recovered from the disease.
The USA remains the country worst affected by the virus with over 610,000 confirmed cases and 26,000 deaths.
On a positive note, reports are now starting to appear in European media of numbers leveling off based on studies of hospital admissions, although no accurate figures on asymptomatic carriers have so far been suggested.