An additional bonus is to be offered to primary healthcare facilities if they refer a patient to a designated COVID-19 hospital for testing and the result comes back positive, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
As several locally transmitted COVID-19 cases associated with staff at an airline and hotel have been reported, and as most of them experienced common symptoms, including a fever or respiratory problems, a reward mechanism has been launched to encourage more proactive testing, the CECC said.
As of yesterday, 28 confirmed cases, including 14 local infections, linked to Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport and China Airlines had been reported since the middle of last month.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said primary healthcare facilities are advised to refer any suspected COVID-19 patient to a designated COVID-19 hospital for testing.
When people seek medical attention at a primary healthcare facility, the physician should consider their symptoms and their self-reported “TOCC” — travel history, occupation, contact history and clusters — and decide whether they should be referred to a designated hospital for COVID-19 testing, the CECC said.
The healthcare facility that makes the referral is to be offered a bonus of NT$10,000 if the person tests positive for COVID-19 and the testing hospital is to receive a bonus of NT$5,000, Chen said.
A bonus of NT$10,000 is already being offered to healthcare professional for reporting a confirmed COVID-19 case, according to the Communicable Disease Control Reward Regulations (傳染病防治獎勵辦法), the center said.
Healthcare facilities are an important first line of defense against COVID-19, so the center hopes that healthcare professionals would remain vigilant and report any suspected cases, and the bonus is being offered to reward them for their hard work under high infection risk, Chen said.
Regarding the infections at China Airlines and the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said genome sequencing on eight more cases has been completed.
He said seven cases at the hotel — four employees, three family members of an employee and a contract worker — were found to be infected with the UK variant (B.1.1.7) and share the exact same sequence, as well as four infected pilots, indicating a linked cluster infection.
Three other cases — a pilot and his two children — were also infected with the UK variant, but with a slight difference in the sequence from the 11 previous cases, so they might be considered a separate cluster infection within a family, he said.
Chen said the CECC held a meeting with China Airlines on Tuesday evening, and considering that the infection source of the pilots and the cluster cases are still unclear, the center has temporarily extended the mandatory quarantine period for China Airlines’ crew from three to five days.
A project to clear COVID-19 from China Airlines crew members is being discussed with the airline, and is expected to be announced today, he said.
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