Mass testing for COVID-19 on all travelers arriving in Taiwan could overwhelm the nation’s healthcare system, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it reported a new confirmed case, a Taiwanese who had returned from Mexico.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that in the past few days the public has been widely debating the Changhua County Public Health Bureau’s testing policy, so he used a simulated scenario to explain why mass testing is not the best policy at this moment.
The bureau was found to have asked many people who had returned from other countries and were still under 14-day home quarantine to be tested for COVID-19, despite having no symptoms, which does not align with the CECC’s policy of only arranging for people in quarantine to be tested if they show symptoms.
Photo provided by the Central Epidemic Command Center via CNA
The bureau’s actions were revealed when the CECC on Monday reported that a Taiwanese teenager living in the US had tested positive on his 10th day of quarantine after returning for a family visit, even though he had no symptoms.
The case sparked controversy as Chen on Monday ordered the Department of Civil Service Ethics to launch an investigation to clarify the situation.
“People have been asking: ‘What is wrong with doing a little more [testing]?” in the past couple of days,” Chen said yesterday. “There is nothing wrong doing a little more if it is proper disease prevention, but if there are flaws in the process, it could result in a big problem.”
Since January about 250,000 people have been put under home isolation or quarantine after arriving in Taiwan, Chen said.
Using 0.2 percent as the prevalence rate — the median of COVID-19 prevalence rates in other countries — and a test kit with 90 percent sensitivity and 95 percent specificity to simulate mass testing on all the arriving travelers, there would be about 500 infected people, but only 450 of them would be detected, he said.
“Mass testing would result in 50 false-negative cases — infected people who tested as negative,” Chen said. “If people who tested negative are allowed to return home without quarantine, then the 50 false-negative cases being allowed to freely move around would most likely cause community spread.”
“Therefore, we know even if mass testing is conducted, mandatory quarantine is still necessary,” he said.
However, if a policy of mass testing following a 14-day quarantine is implemented, there would be about 12,475 false-positive cases — people who were not infected but tested positive, Chen said.
He said that the 12,475 false-positive cases would be hospitalized for about five to six days and would only be released from isolation after they tested negative twice consecutively, which would overwhelm healthcare capacity that should be preserved for people who actually need medical treatment.
The 12,475 people who were not infected would be placed in hospitals, which are high-risk environments, he said.
Contact tracing would need to be conducted on all 12,475 false-positive cases, which might result in all airline crew members being placed under home isolation, he added.
“From the disease situations in other countries, we known that once the healthcare system is overwhelmed, community spread will begin, because infected people cannot be hospitalized and have to go back into local communities,” Chen said.
He added that he is worried about the argument that “doing more testing would allow those who tested negative and their family members to feel safe,” because it does not mean that a person is immune to COVID-19, and sometimes a test result is negative because the person’s viral load was low at the time of testing.
“If people who test negative let their guard down, the risk of infection will increase,” Chen said, adding that it would cost about NT$800 million (US$27.1 million) if all 250,000 arriving travelers were tested, but the risk of local infection would increase.
Meanwhile, the new imported case reported yesterday is a woman in her 20s, who traveled to Mexico for work in late January and returned to Taiwan on Wednesday, the CECC said.
Ten passengers who sat near her during the flight back to Taiwan have been placed under home isolation, it said.
Fifteen crew members, who wore protective gear during the flight, would practice self-health management, it added.
IF THE CHIPS ARE DOWN: The US secretary of state warned that a disruption to the supply of Taiwanese semiconductors would play havoc with the global economy If Taiwan were attacked, the global economy would face devastation, as that is where most of the world’s semiconductors are produced, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday. In an interview that aired on the 60 Minutes television program, Blinken was asked whether instability across the Taiwan Strait would be felt around the world. Blinken said that China has been increasingly aggressive against Taiwan, posing a threat to peace and stability in the region, while economically the world would feel the effects of such aggression. Blinken was interviewed for the program after meeting with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi
‘ABSURD’: UN Resolution 2758 expelled the Chiang Kai-Shek government without mentioning Taipei, something the Chinese minister did not acknowledge, Taipei said Taiwan yesterday criticized Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) for “intentionally misinterpreting” a 1971 UN resolution to misrepresent Taiwan’s status to the global community. In his address on Saturday to the UN General Assembly, Wang cited Resolution 2758 as a basis for Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China. He said that Beijing considers Taiwan an “inseparable part of China’s territory since ancient times.” “Only when China is completely reunified can there be enduring peace across the Taiwan Strait... Any move to obstruct China’s reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history,” Wang said. General Assembly Resolution 2758
MORE ARRIVALS ALLOWED: Taiwan yesterday increased its cap on arrivals to 60,000 from 50,000 ahead of a full border opening with a weekly cap of 150,000 on Oct. 13 Travelers arriving in Taiwan from Oct. 13 would no longer be required to quarantine on arrival and visitors of all nationalities would be allowed to enter, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) announced yesterday. However, the number of arrivals would be capped at 150,000 per week, he added. Travelers aged two or older would be given four rapid antigen COVID-19 test kits on arrival and be asked to monitor their health for seven days, Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) told a news conference. Under the new arrival protocol, travelers would have to take a test on the day of arrival or the day after, followed
The UK is determined to work with its allies to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself, British Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Sunday, a pledge that drew expressions of gratitude from Taipei. “What I’ve been clear about is that all of our allies need to make sure Taiwan is able to defend itself, and that is very, very important,” Truss said in a CNN interview, when asked whether the UK was willing to match the US’ pledge last week to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack by China. Truss said her government was working with its G7 allies,
RSS