The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is this weekend reviewing the effectiveness of the level 3 COVID-19 alert and is to report its findings early this week, it said on Friday.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that a declining trend had yet to emerge in the recent outbreak, despite the May 19 imposition of strict nationwide disease prevention measures, including closing schools and public venues, restricting gatherings to no more than five people indoors and 10 outdoors, and advising people to stay home.
The CECC would review the status of the outbreak in the coming days, and would likely report its conclusions to the public tomorrow or Tuesday, Chen said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, Chen said that he supported Taipei and New Taipei City making preparations for lockdowns under a potential level 4 alert, saying that “having a plan is never a bad thing.”
However, the municipalities’ most urgent task is to ensure that they have adequate testing capacity and that people with COVID-19 quarantining at home can quickly access medical care if their conditions worsen, he said.
He made the remarks after Taipei on Friday announced that it would today hold drills to simulate a situation in which a level 4 alert was issued.
Photo Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The preparations include drafting contingency plans, testing plans simulated in “tabletop exercises” and real-world drills held by epidemic prevention personnel, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
“This does not mean that we will enter a lockdown, but it means that the situation is tense,” Ko said.
“We have managed to flatten the curve in [outbreak hot spot] Wanhua District (萬華), but [the virus] is still slowly spreading in other districts,” he added.
As of yesterday, New Taipei City and Taoyuan had also announced that they were making preparations for the possibility of a level 4 alert, in which people would only be allowed to leave their home for essential activities, such as grocery shopping.
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