Mon, Apr 25, 2022 page1

• COVID-19: Premier approves 3-day isolation plan

  JUST THE BEGINNING: As local cases rose to 5,092, the health minister said an NHRI simulation found that confirmed cases could peak at about 45,000 per day

  • By Lee I-chia and Lu Yi-hsuan / Staff reporters
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  Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday agreed to a new policy to shorten home isolation to three days, as long as those involved test negative for COVID-19 in the following four days and adhere to certain restrictions.

  The “3+4” policy was agreed upon during a disease prevention meeting at the Executive Yuan.

  The exact implementation date for the new policy would be announced after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has held discussions with local governments, the Executive Yuan said.

  

  Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) talks to reporters on Saturday to reveal isolation period for Covid-19 infected cases will be reduced soon.

  Photo: Chen Li-feng, Liberty Times

  Those who test negative for COVID-19 using rapid tests in the four days following their three days of isolation can leave the house, but they must always wear a mask and cannot dine in or attend mass events during that time, it said.

  Those at yesterday’s meeting also decided to limit close contacts to family members who live under the same roof as a COVID-19 case, meaning contact tracing would no longer include work colleagues who have worn their masks.

  Separately yesterday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the real-name based rationing scheme for rapid COVID-19 test kits is likely to begin early next month.

  

  Premier Su Tseng-chang speaks at a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei in an undated photograph.

  Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times

  At least 50 million kits are to be offered through the scheme next month, and as each person can buy five kits at a time, about 10 million people are expected to be able to purchase rapid test kits in the first month, he said.

  Meanwhile, Chen said that 5,092 local cases and 80 imported cases were confirmed yesterday, including 46 from Vietnam.

  The most local cases were in New Taipei City with 1,731, followed by Taoyuan with 1,071, Taipei with 1,027, Keelung with 301, Hualien County with 182, Taichung with 150, Kaohsiung with 147 and Yilan County with 122, while 14 other cities and counties had case numbers ranging from one to 57.

  Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that Taiwan has not reached the peak of its local COVID-19 outbreak, which might reach about 50,000 cases per day for about 100 days.

  It might take about two months to return to about 1,000 cases per day, Ko added.

  In response, Chen said that yesterday’s case count increased 23.4 percent from Saturday.

  Case numbers would increase rapidly in the upcoming days, so “we must prepare sufficient drugs, rapid test kits and vaccines, as well as properly classify cases and take good care of moderate and severe cases,” Chen said.

  He said that Ko might have cited figures from a simulation by the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), which he reported to six local government heads in a meeting on Saturday.

  The NHRI’s simulation suggested the peak would reach about 45,000 confirmed cases per day, Chen said.

  “We hope to keep the curve of daily case counts flatter, rather than growing to a steep peak,” Chen said. “As it is better to overestimate the enemy, we have been preparing for an estimated peak of about 100,000 cases per day and a total of 3.5 million cumulative cases.”

  Using a higher-than-expected estimation that 20 percent of confirmed cases might need to take antiviral drugs, the government has purchased 700,000 courses of the oral antiviral pill Paxlovid, he said.

  Asked if the center has an expected number of severe cases and deaths, Chen said the situation in Taiwan is similar to New Zealand’s when its local outbreak started, so the center is working toward a relatively low fatality rate, like that in New Zealand, of about 0.05 percent.

  The CECC also reported 10 new moderate COVID-19 cases, and one severe case — a man in his 50s who has diabetes and had upper gastrointestinal bleeding, an intestinal obstruction and respiratory failure.
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