Taiwan reported 33 new novel coronavirus infections on Saturday and six deaths due to COVID-19, of which 31 were domestic infections and two of the people who died were in their 30s, the youngest deaths on the island due to the disease.

In its most recent wave of the novel coronavirus to hit Taiwan, the total number of domestic infections has reached 13,994, and there have been 732 deaths. That means the COVID-19 death rate on the island exceeds 5 percent, almost twice the world's average.

On Monday, two full months will have passed since the island's health authorities adopted a third-level alert on May 12 because of a new wave of infections. During the two months, the pandemic on the island has not been eased a bit, and the alert has been extended for two more weeks, without anyone knowing whether it will continue.

This harmful situation could have been prevented had the island's leader Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party not put their selfish political interests above the lives and health of people on the island.

On the very day of the new outbreak in Taiwan, the Chinese mainland publicly expressed its willingness to help, but this assistance was rejected by the Tsai administration. In fact, the mainland has more than once expressed its willingness to offer domestic vaccines that are approved by the World Health Organization, as well as support the offer of vaccines by Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group and its German partner BioNTech. The Tsai administration has even rejected applications from local businesses to buy them.

Yet the Tsai administration has shown a different face to the United States and Japan, expressing its "gratitude" for the 2.5 million doses the island is receiving from the US and the AstraZeneca vaccines it is getting from Japan.

As a result of the vicious political games the Tsai administration is playing, the island's vaccination rate is still around 10 percent.

It is Tsai and the DPP that have caused such a miserable situation. The public health crisis has made it clear that the DPP is a party that cares only about its own political interests.

For whatever reason, the Tsai administration has no reason to turn down the help from the mainland as there are obviously not enough vaccines to meet the need of residents on the island. If Taiwan authorities really put the interests of people before everything, they should know how absurd they are to reject help from the mainland.