Taiwan has already achieved wide-scale screening of COVID-19, public health experts at National Taiwan University (NTU) said yesterday, and suggested developing antibody rapid diagnostic tests to help society and the economy bounce back from the pandemic quicker.
NTU College of Public Health dean Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) said that Taiwan has done a good job in blocking COVID-19 at it borders over the past 100 days.
Taiwan has also used digital technology to trace and find domestic cases who had been exposed to imported cases, and isolate them for treatment to prevent the virus from further spreading in communities, he said.
Wearing masks and practicing “social distancing” have also had positive effects, he said.
While it is still unknown how the global COVID-19 pandemic would develop, many countries face the challenging decision of whether to gradually lift disease-prevention regulations to allow economic recovery, and if so, how to do it, Chan said.
NTU Hospital department of emergency medicine doctor Lee Chien-chang (李建璋) said that while many have questioned why Taiwan did not test more people for the disease, he thinks Taiwan has already achieved wide-scale screening of COVID-19.
The situation in each country is different, so the testing coverage rate should not be calculated by how many people have been tested per 1 million population, but rather by how many people have tested positive among those who were tested for COVID-19, Lee said.
About one person in every 120 tested people shows a positive result in Taiwan, compared with one in about every 50 tested people in Australia and South Korea, one in about every 10 tested people in the US, and one in about every two tested people in New York, he said.
He said that the testing coverage in Taiwan is higher than Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, but if the rate of positive results increases to about one in every 50 tested people, then Taiwan should consider increasing the number of the tests it conducts.
NTU College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said that as most countries use reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests or rapid antigen tests to detect infected people and isolate them for treatment, the next step should be developing antibody rapid diagnostic tests.
“We have to completely change our way of thinking,” Chen said. “Those who had been infected and have recovered carry antibodies, so they have become an important group that can protect other people.”
Antibody rapid diagnostic tests can be used to find these healthy people, especially healthcare professionals, airline crew members or people in the tourism industry, who have recovered from COVID-19, and they can safely return to work, bringing society back to normal, he said.
In countries where large-scale outbreaks have not occurred, such as Taiwan, rapid antigen tests for finding infected people is important for infection control and treatment, Chan said.
However, in countries with wide-scale local spread of the disease, antibody rapid diagnostic tests are important to find a group of “safe people” who can return to work or school, he said.
Rapid wide-scale testing in Germany not only screens for infected patients, but also for people who have developed antibodies, which is an advanced disease-prevention measure as well as a preparation toward social recovery, he added.
Chan said he believes starting next month, several European countries or the US might begin to use antibody rapid diagnostic tests to revive their economy as they wait for medication to be developed.
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