A cab driver is the first Taiwanese citizen or resident to die from COVID-19.   He is the ninteenth known patient.

While it is important to find out who he caught it from, it’s also important to find out who was in his cab afterward.  Did he pass it on to others?  That could be difficult if there were no in-car video camera.  Some cabs take payment by credit card or Easy Card (metro cards for bus and subway), but even those who do ususally use cash.

Unfortunately, the title is cringeworthy.  It’s not the “Wuhan virus”:

WUHAN VIRUS/Taiwan reports first death from coronavirus infection (update)

Taipei, Feb. 16 (CNA) Taiwan on Sunday reported the nation’s first death from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), a 61-year-old male living in central Taiwan, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The patient, who had Hepatitis B and diabetes, had not traveled overseas recently and no known contact with COVID-19 patients, according to Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC. The authorities are still working to determine how the man became infected.

“This could be Taiwan’s first community transmitted case,” Chen noted. The man is the nation’s 19th confirmed coronovirus patient.

CNA has learned the unidentified man was a taxi driver who had many customers that regularly travel to and from China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The health authorities are now checking the man’s phone records, medical records and CCTV footage of his travel history within the country in order to determine how he was infected with the deadly virus.

Multiple sources will tell you diseases are never be named after people or places because of the inherent racism and judging of people from that area.  Calling it the “Wuhan virus” plays into anti-China racism, just as “Zika”, “Hanta” and “Ebola” names do.

The PRC has taken the step of destroying paper currency from the Wuhan area.  Do they know something they’re not telling?  (Warning: South China Morning Post – link above – is a known PRC mouthpiece.)