TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — All three residents of a quarantine hotel in Taipei have been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19’s Omicron variant, but the authorities have not yet determined whether it is a cluster outbreak, reports said Saturday (Jan. 1).

On Friday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) linked one of the three cases to the Omicron strain.  

Case No. 17,058 arrived in Taiwan from Shenzhen, China, on Dec. 14 and stayed on the sixth floor of the hotel. Cases 17,085 and 17,099 traveled from the United States and Japan, respectively, and stayed in separate rooms on the fifth floor.

Even though all three have now been confirmed as Omicron cases, the test results were unclear as to the date of their infections, UDN reported. Hence, it has not been determined if they are part of a cluster outbreak at the hotel, which might lead to them being recategorized as local cases.

CECC Spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said Saturday that experts needed to take a closer look at the path of potential infections in the hotel, which has since been evacuated. During a visit Friday, investigators tested 14 locations, but all of them were negative for the virus.

Of 81 close contacts, three still needed to be tested, the test results of three others has not been completed yet. One was Case No. 17,099, while all others were negative, Chuang said.

With the additional hotel residents, Taiwan’s total number of Omicron cases so far has risen to 62, all of which were imported.