Taiwan to change COVID-19 classification

TAIPEI -- Taiwan plans to put COVID-19 in the same category of notifiable communicable diseases as influenza from May 1, the local disease monitoring agency said on Tuesday.

COVID-19 is currently a category-five notifiable communicable disease, the agency said in a press release.

The disease monitoring agency was founded in January 2020 to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and it will be dissolved accordingly, the statement said.

The island's health department will establish a COVID-19 coordination and expert consultation mechanism to handle the development of the epidemic in the future, the statement said.

As of March 20, Taiwan has reported more than 10.18 million COVID-19 cases and 19,404 deaths since its first case was announced on Jan 21, 2020.

The island has gradually lifted restrictive measures related to COVID-19 over the past few months. Since April 17 people have no longer been required to wear masks to board public transport.