The COVID-19 Delta variant has reached Taiwan, and has so far infected 12 people. Authorities are trying to get a handle on this more transmissible strain before it gets out of hand.

As daily COVID-19 cases begin tapering off, the question on everyone’s mind now is ‘should we be worried about the Delta variant?’ First discovered in India, this more transmissible COVID-19 variant is causing concern in Taiwan. 

A woman in her 50s and her grandson brought the strain to Taiwan when they returned from Peru on June 6. There’s now a cluster outbreak of 15 COVID-19 cases in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County. Health authorities have confirmed that 12 of the 15 cases are the Delta variant. One is awaiting genetic sequencing results, while the last two cases’ strain can’t be determined. 

One of the 12 Delta cases is a fruit farmer. Health authorities have yet to definitively determine how the farmer contracted the strain, though they suspect that it might have happened when he visited a hospital on the same day as another confirmed case. 

The hospital the fruit farmer visited suspended operations for two days to undergo disinfection. 399 people who have come into contact with the fruit farmer have all been sent to quarantine centers. 

With COVID-19 subsiding across Taiwan, the last thing the country needs is the Delta variant flaring up.