One of the main tasks facing the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is working toward lifting mandatory isolation for mild cases of COVID-19, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, said yesterday.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said 12,397 new local cases, 260 imported cases, and 54 deaths were confirmed yesterday, adding that the caseload was 24.4 percent lower than that reported on Monday last week.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said that of the 54 deaths, about half — 26 people — were unvaccinated and 34 did not get a booster shot, while 51 of the people who died had underlying health conditions.
Photo: screen grab from livestream
Wang said that while daily case counts rapidly increased after the Lunar New Year holiday, the number of cases have fallen quickly in the past few days, so the accumulated weekly new local case count last week was 138,344, which was 24.7 percent lower than the previous week.
The number of deaths have been relatively high in the past few days, which Wang said was because it is a lagging indicator, which often falls behind the number of daily new cases by about two weeks, so the relatively high number of deaths reflects the peak of the third wave of infections after the Lunar New Year.
Asked about reports that mortuary refrigeration units in Taipei and New Taipei City are packed with bodies and whether it had been caused by an increase in COVID-19 deaths, Wang said the Mortuary Services Office of the two cities had explained to the CECC that it is a common situation after the Lunar New Year, as it is traditional to avoid holding funerals during the holiday and they are postponed, causing a shortage in available refrigeration units.
As the domestic outbreak is slowing, the CECC now has three main tasks — promoting the Omicron-adapted COVID-19 bivalent vaccine, revising the isolation measures for mild COVID-19 cases and revising the definition for reporting COVID-19 cases, Wang said.
The CECC would be working toward revising the “5+N” days of mandatory isolation for confirmed cases to “0+N” days of recommended isolation, he said, adding that the center would discuss the issue with specialists and announce the new policy when the COVID-19 situation is “stable.”
Wang said the center would also work on revising the case reporting guidelines, requiring physicians to only report moderate-to-severe COVID-19 cases, especially those who are hospitalized, while no longer needing to report mild cases.
Genomic sequencing surveillance showed that the Omicron BA.2.75 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 was the dominant strain detected among both local and imported cases last week, Lo said.
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