The results of a controversial antibody study in Changhua County, which National Taiwan University (NTU) public health researchers announced yesterday, showed the success of the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) disease prevention efforts, but not the need for universal screening.
The research was mainly conducted by the county government, while NTU’s College of Public Health assisted with data analysis, former college dean Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) told a news conference convened in Taipei to announce the preliminary results.
Chan had been calling for mass testing for COVID-19 to identify asymptomatic patients, but the CECC had not taken his advice.
Photo: CNA
Of the 4,841 high-risk people whose blood samples were analyzed, only four were confirmed positive, a rate of 8.3 positive people per 10,000, Changhua Public Health Bureau Director Yeh Yen-po (葉彥伯) said.
Those who were inspected included confirmed COVID-19 patients and those with high risk of becoming patients, including medical personnel, police officers who helped with disease prevention measures and those under home quarantine after returning from the US, Europe and China, he said.
The study demonstrates that the average citizen does not need an antibody test, Yeh said, adding that the test results prove that Changhua is safe.
Taiwan’s first COVID-19 patient, an unlicensed taxi driver who also became the nation’s first death from the pandemic, was in the county, but the rest of the nation does not need to worry now that Changhua is safe, he added.
Since April, the bureau has bumped heads with the CECC for conducting pathology testing not approved by the center.
An Aug. 15 test that discovered the nation’s 485th case — a Taiwanese teen living in the US who arrived on Aug. 5 for a family visit — was touted as proof that the nation needed to implement general screening for COVID-19, increasing tensions between the CECC and the county government.
At the news conference, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman, thanked the research team for announcing the results despite the challenges, saying that the research clarified whether the nation’s disease prevention system has any loopholes.
The results show that the CECC’s policy of using home quarantine and home isolation to prevent transmission of the virus by asymptomatic patients works, Chuang said.
Asked to comment on the results of the mass testing, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said it showed that the collaborative efforts of all parts of society to prevent the spread of the disease paid off.
It also showed that mass testing is unnecessary, he added.
Hopefully, people would learn their lesson and follow the CECC’s instructions, he said, adding that in disease prevention, unity is strength.
Regarding controversy surrounding the funding sources and testing agents for the research, Chan said that the school’s study was academic, as its contract with the county government said that it could provide assistance if public health evaluations were needed.
Their study had been approved by NTU’s Institutional Review Board, he added.
NTU provided the funding to purchase the antibody serum solutions and the research team helped analyze the serum samples, Chan said, adding that it did not collect any of the blood samples.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin, Wu Po-hsuanand Lin Hui-chin
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS