Cases Fall, But CHP Wants Distancing Rules To Stay

Health officials say they see no grounds for the government not to extend social distancing regulations that are due to expire on April 23, even as the number of coronavirus cases continues its sharp downward trend.

The Centre for Health Protection reported four new cases on Sunday, the first single-digit total in almost a month. All but one of the patients had travelled recently.

The locally infected case was a 63-year-old woman who had close contact with another patient. There were 11 cases on Saturday, taking the total past 1,000.

Despite the steep fall in cases, the head of the centre's communicable disease branch, Chuang Shuk-kwan, said she thought the government's ban on gatherings of more than four people, as well as other restrictions, should be renewed after their expiry date of April 23.

"If we go out and gather again, I mean if there's any asymptomatic infection and chains of transmission, then another outbreak will happen," Chuang explained.

"But [it] depends on the latest monitoring and decisions from the higher government."

She noted that the lower numbers of cases recently reflected a drop in inbound travellers in the past couple of weeks and that previous cluster transmissions were under control.

But she repeated her warning that the situation was not under control yet.

"Usually what is meant by under control is if we don't have any cases for one or two incubation periods," she said, "So it needs more than two weeks or a month."

She also called on the public to stay vigilant, as she pointed out that any infections from gatherings over the Easter holiday may only surface a couple of weeks later.