The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections.
The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines.
Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.
Photo: CNA
People in the age group can take the positive test cassette to a healthcare facility for a doctor to confirm the result, he said.
If they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, they can see a doctor through a telemedicine consultation or have someone else take the cassette to a doctor for assessment, he added.
Once the doctor confirms the positive result, they can report the patient as a confirmed case, and the local health department would carry on with the triage process and inform the patient to isolate at home or arrange other facilities, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
The CECC on Monday announced that close contacts of a confirmed case who have received a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine can be exempted from the “3+4” policy — three days of home isolation and four days of self-disease prevention — and instead follow the “0+7” policy, which means just seven days of self-disease prevention.
Chen yesterday said junior-high and high-school students who have received a booster dose can also follow the “0+7” policy if they are identified as a close contact.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) physician Chen Wan-ching (陳婉青) said a check box has been added to the column for each close contact in the online contact tracing self-reporting system, allowing the confirmed case to select whether the close contact has received a booster shot.
Ticking the check box means the close contact has received a booster shot, in which case they would not receive a home isolation notification, she said.
The CECC late on Monday said in a statement that close contacts who have received a booster shot can still follow the “3+4” policy if they wish.
Confirmed cases can edit the online contact tracing report only once within 24 hours after submitting the form, so they should make sure the information is correct before submitting it, the CECC said.
Asked if confirmed cases who have been released from isolation would be subject to the “3+4” or the “0+7” policy, Chen Wan-ching said confirmed cases who have recovered would not be identified as a close contact in the three months following infection, as their risk of reinfection is extremely low.
Meanwhile, CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), head of the CECC’s disease surveillance division, said 65,794 local COVID-19 infections, 39 imported cases and 38 deaths were confirmed yesterday.
As of Monday, 368 severe cases, including 282 deaths, have been reported this year, accounting for 0.05 percent of the total 803,337 local cases this year, he said.
Of the 38 deaths, 17 were aged 80 or older, and only one had no underlying health conditions, the CECC said, adding that 18 were unvaccinated and 24 had not received a booster shot.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not