If I may slightly rephrase, actually even more worrying: apparently NOT related to the Indonesian pilot, but a suspected SEPARATE UNRELATED CARGO case with source currently unknown
"The latest test results, Chuang said, show the patient is in the early stage of COVID-19, the initial conclusion being that the infection is not linked to the Indonesian pilot.
The Taiwanese man is the second cargo flight crew member found to be infected with COVID-19 since April 21. Another Indonesian pilot in Taiwan was confirmed as having COVID-19 on Friday.
In addition, the teenage son of the Indonesian pilot who tested positive in Australia was also found to have contracted COVID-19 on Friday, Taiwanâs first domestically transmitted case in over 70 days."
So shows once more how urgently the air crew issue needs to be fixed
All five infected cargo pilots in this latest series (i.e. not counting the earlier disgraced cargo pilot who didnât follow protocol) have been at China Airlines. Minister Chen expressed displeasure at how slow this company has been in vaccinating their pilots. EVA has apparently been faster.
In the meantime, they are in the process of testing all the pilotsâŚ
As counterintuitive as this might sound at first sight, not even sure that vaccinating the pilots can make up for their insufficient quarantine. If they are unvaccinated, then they at least notice when they are sick and this allows to trigger tracing earlier than otherwise. Of course, the risk of transmitting covid declines following vaccination and protects the life of the pilots themselves, but probably about 20-40% of vaccinated can still transmit the virus even if not getting sick themselves. So with a zero covid aim the most important thing for the protection of the general population is not to get the pilots vaccinated, but to have a proper quarantine process for them
Two more cargo pilotsâagain from China Airlinesâhave tested positive (though the results of one remain mixedâperhaps a false positive?).
The CDC has not yet determined if the seven pilotsâ cases are related, but they have determined that all were infected with the UK variant.
I imagine we can expect more confirmed cases, as more than 1200 employees at China Airlines are currently being tested, along with the contacts of the infected pilots.
NTUSTâa university in Taipei with, I believe, the largest percentage of international students of any public university in Taiwanâhas been caught in the latest cluster via visits to Taipeiâs Mosque:
Once again the CDCâs vaunted contact tracing skills are being put to the test.
As this moves forward, folks near me in Taipei very close to this cluster appear completely undisturbed, with plenty of folks blithely disregarding mask guidelines indoors.
