Public health experts and medical specialists yesterday debated whether conducting mass testing for COVID-19 on all travelers arriving in Taiwan is needed to bolster prevention efforts against SARS-CoV-2, and there seemed to be some agreement that it was not needed for the general public at this time.
The topic has become subject of heated public debate after an asymptomatic teenager under quarantine in Changhua County tested positive for COVID-19, highlighting the practice of the Changhua County Public Health Bureau to test the hundreds of people in the county under 14-day home quarantine after returning to Taiwan even if they had no COVID-19 symptoms.
The move appears to contravene the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) quarantine policy, which does not allow people under quarantine to leave the place they are isolating, and for people to be tested only if they report symptoms.
Photo: AFP
The CECC last week ordered an investigation into why and how the Changhua bureau has been running its testing program.
A conference was held in Taipei yesterday by the Taiwan Society of Microbiology, the Taiwan Society of Clinical Pathologists and the Society of Taiwan Long-Term Care Infection Prevention and Control, to discuss the pros and cons of mass testing.
The highly contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2 has been shown by the fact that more than 23 million people have been infected and more than 800,000 people have died, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who also serves as the CECC’s spokesman.
Having rapid and accurate testing is a key factor in containing the virus, so the CDC developed COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test methods early on in the outbreak, and Taiwan’s testing capacity has been expanded to more than 65 healthcare facilities nationwide and more than 7,400 tests per day, he said.
The testing numbers would continue to grow, he said.
Tony Chen (陳秀熙), vice dean of National Taiwan University’s (NTU) College of Public Health, said an important point of testing is detecting asymptomatic carriers, but he is not in favor of conducting “mass testing” on the general public, but only on travelers arriving from high-risk countries.
Conducting continuous COVID-19 antibody testing could be an effective method of understanding the past infections, as it would allow the government to understand local infections and community spread, the nation’s herd immunity, and to detect asymptomatic carriers, Chen said.
Such a program would also help in the development of vaccines, he said.
Several nations, including Singapore, the US, the UK, Spain and Iceland, have been conducting antibody testing and surveillance, which can help them understand the neutralizing antibody response in patients with mild symptoms and those with serious complications, and accelerate vaccine development, he added.
There is an urgent need for COVID-19 antibody testing, as no one yet knows how long antibody immunity can last, he said.
Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎), a physician at NTU Hospital’s division of pediatric infectious disease and a member of the CECC’s expert advisory panel, said mass testing could include testing all travelers arriving in Taiwan, and PRC testing and antibody testing on the general public.
However, it was important to remember that while many people cite Iceland as an example of a nation with a mass testing policy, only about 10 percent of its population has been tested for COVID-19, and as it loosened its border control policies after expanding its testing program, the number of local infections began to increase, Lee said.
For Taiwan, the cost of conducting mass PCR testing is too high, while its benefit might be close to none, given that there have been no reports of local infections for a long time, he said.
Another factor is that mass testing on the general public could result in many false-positive returns, which could cause public panic, he said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS