News Analysis On Dec 9, 2021, Taiwan announced that a researcher working in a Biosafety-level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory in Taipei had tested positive for the Delta variant of COVID-19 “while experimenting on the virus in the lab.” Chen Shih-chung, the head of Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) confirmed that the female researcher had tested positive for COVID-19 after being “exposed to the pathogen” during research that was conducted in mid-November at the Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center in Taipei. Notably, Taiwan has not experienced any recent cases of COVID-19, a fact noted by Chen who said, “We believe the possibility of infection from the workplace is higher because we have zero confirmed infections in the community.” It was later reported that the researcher had been bitten by a mouse during two separate incidents. Taipei’s deputy mayor Huang Shan-shan, who described the woman as a “research assistant,” said that she …