Taiwan reports 13 new local COVID-19 cases

TAIPEI, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan Thursday reported 25 new COVID-19 cases, 13 of which were confirmed local infections, the local disease monitoring agency said.

Nine of the 13 local cases are contacts of a COVID-19 patient confirmed on May 11 who lives in Luzhou District, New Taipei City. Four other local cases have links to an established cluster involving teahouses in Taipei's Wanhua District.

Besides the clusters in Luzhou and Wanhua, Taiwan also reported another cluster associated with an arcade in Yilan County this week.

As patients included in the Luzhou cluster had gone to a teahouse in Wanhua, and some in the Wanhua cluster had visited branches of the gaming arcade in Yilan, authorities are investigating whether these three clusters are connected.

Taiwan also recorded 12 imported cases of the disease from the Philippines, India, and Uganda.

The total number of confirmed cases on the island has risen to 1,256, including 12 deaths, the agency said.