TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A physician in New Taipei is believed to be the first doctor in Taiwan to die from COVID-19.

At a press conference on Thursday (June 10), Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) Spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said the family of a 66-year-old physician who works at a clinic in New Taipei City's Sanchong District had found him unconscious in his bedroom in his Taipei home on Wednesday (June 9). Paramedics suspected that he had "silent hypoxia," a form of hypoxia that does not coincide with shortness of breath, and rushed him to the National Taiwan University Hospital.

However, he suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and doctors were unable to resuscitate him and declared him dead at the hospital. Media reports stated that he was the first Taiwanese physician to die from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

According to Chuang, the doctor had received his first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on May 31. He did, however, have a history of chronic disease, including high blood pressure and diabetes, and had recently experienced shortness of breath and a cough.

The New Taipei City Department of Health is conducting an epidemiological investigation to identify patients who have recently come in contact with him at the clinic. Three contacts from the clinic have been listed so far, according to Apple Daily.

When asked by a reporter whether this marked the first doctor to succumb to COVID-19 in the country, Chuang said that the CECC is still investigating the case and would provide a more definitive answer on Friday (June 11).