National Taiwan University College of Public Health staff yesterday said that Taiwan should increase its COVID-19 testing capacity and implement a digital tracking system before relaxing border control measures.
In the college’s 15th weekly COVID-19 report yesterday morning, dean Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) said that as the pandemic is gradually slowing down, many countries are considering easing lockdown and social distancing rules, making it critically important to use precise disease prevention measures to avert a new wave of infections.
While Taiwan has not had to enforce a lockdown, it still closed its borders to foreign nationals to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and if the nation wants to relax its border control measures, it must first enhance its capacities in three areas — testing, tracking and tracing, he said.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Chan said that in the US, the state of New York doubled its testing capacity to more than 40,000 people per day — and more than 80,000 per day with the help of neighboring states — to allow uninfected people to return to work.
Iceland has the highest testing rate for COVID-19 in the world, with relatively few confirmed cases and deaths, he said.
However, it announced that before summer, its peak tourism season, and no later than June 15, all arriving travelers would have to choose between a two-week quarantine or a COVID-19 test, he added.
Moreover, travelers would likely be required to use an official footprint tracing app when traveling, Chan said, adding that Taiwan should look toward measures adopted by Iceland when it considers reopening borders for international travel, but it must first expand testing capacity.
College vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said that countries with wide-scale local outbreaks are still likely to have clusters of infections after restrictions are eased, mostly due to relaxed social distancing and undetected asymptomatic cases.
If people cannot thoroughly practice social distancing and personal protective measures, small-scale outbreaks could still occur, he said, adding that Taiwan has not reported cases in many days, and it cannot close its national borders forever.
He said that the government should expand testing of people at greater risk of exposure to the virus, such as businesspeople who often travel abroad and workers in industries where it is difficult to practice social distancing.
Chen pointed to Australia’s use of a contact tracing app, which alerts users when they come within 1.5m of another person using the program and notifies them if they have been near a confirmed infected person for more than 15 minutes.
Only health authorities would have access to the data, as user information is anonymized and would be deleted after 21 days, he said.
He said that Taiwan should also launch an official digital tracking system, as reopening national borders would increase the risk of imported cases of COVID-19.
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