The WHO’s designation of COVID-19 as a global pandemic came too late, Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday.
Chen, an epidemiologist by training, made the remark at a tree-planting event in Taichung.
On Tuesday, Chen said on Facebook that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ warning to nations that the mortality rate of the disease was increasing was empty, as Tedros failed to look at individual nations’ testing policies.
Photo: Chang Hsuan-che, Taipei Times
“When you see the number of confirmed patients decreasing and the mortality rate increasing, you should pay attention to how that nation is conducting tests,” Chen said.
The number of confirmed cases is related not only to the nation’s population, but also virus test coverage, he said.
Nations only testing people with evident and advanced symptoms will see a low number of confirmed cases and low incidence rates, while those that inspect all who come in contact with confirmed patients would see higher numbers of confirmed patients and incidence rates, he added.
Italy, South Korea, Iran and China lead the world with five confirmed cases per 100,000 people, while the incidence rate in Taiwan, Japan and the US are among the lowest globally at less than 0.5, Chen said.
When fatality rates are included in the equation, nations that limit their calculations to confirmed patients with advanced symptoms will see a higher mortality rate, he said.
The fatality rate is determined by age, history of chronic disease and quality of medical care, he added.
Tedros’ comments simply sparked unnecessary panic and were unbecoming of someone in his position, Chen said.
Prior to his entry into politics, Chen was trained in the field of public health and holds a doctorate in epidemiology and human genetics from Johns Hopkins University. He is also a former president of Academia Sinica.
Additional reporting by CNA
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS