A two-year-old boy is hospitalized with severe COVID-19 symptoms, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 1,199 new local cases.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, told the center’s daily news conference that nine new cases were classified as moderate and one — the boy — as severe.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said the boy had developed encephalitis and multiple organ dysfunction due to COVID-19, despite having no history of chronic illness.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
The boy is in an intensive care unit, he said, adding that he breathes with the help of a ventilator, and is being treated with corticosteroids and immunity modulator drugs.
It is the nation’s first severe COVID-19 case involving a child, Lo said.
The new moderate cases are aged between 10 and 100, Lo said, adding that two younger cases — a teenage girl and a man in his 20s — had pneumonia and their blood oxygen levels had fallen to below 94 percent.
Photo: CNA
Asked about media reports that family members of the severe case accused medical agencies of passing the buck and delaying treatment, Chen said that the boy’s mother called the CDC’s 1922 hotline twice, at 5:42pm and 6:09pm on Thursday.
The hotline referred the case to the New Taipei City Department of Health, which contacted the mother at about 6:30pm and at 7:06pm sent an ambulance to their home, in which the boy arrived at the hospital at about 7:30pm, he said.
The CECC said that the most new cases were in New Taipei City, with 434, followed by Taipei with 206, Taoyuan with 159, Keelung with 92, Kaohsiung with 60, Hualien County with 55, Taichung with 40, Yilan County with 39 and Tainan with 29, while one to 16 cases were reported in 10 other cities and counties.
Taiwan also reported 152 new imported cases.
Among 7,752 local cases reported from Jan. 1 to Friday, only 39 were classified as moderate or severe, while the rest — about 99.5 percent — were mild or asymptomatic, Chen said.
As the demand for at-home rapid COVID-19 tests is expected to rise, Chen said the government is working to introduce a rapid test kit rationing scheme as soon as possible to ensure a steady, affordable supply.
The kits should be used by people who are at higher risk of infection, for example after visiting transmission hot spots or crowded places, or after having direct contact with a confirmed case or visiting the same place as a confirmed case at about the same time, he said.
People who feel at risk of infection and have respiratory symptoms can also make an appointment at a designated clinic offering government-funded rapid tests, Chen said.
A doctor would assess their condition and decide whether to provide a test kit, he added.
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