Taiwan may see domestic Covid-19 infections top 10,000 a day by the end of the month, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said, calling on people to exercise caution and stick to wearing face masks.

The island of 23 million people moved early to control the pandemic, adopting measures such as largely closing its borders and tracing contacts of those infected, but it has seen a rise in infections since the beginning of the year, reports Reuters.

The 13,164 domestic cases since January 1 have been driven by the more infectious Omicron variant, though more than 99 per cent have shown only mild symptoms or none at all.

Daily cases are likely to keep going up, Chen told a daily news conference at which he announced a further 2,386 domestic infections.