A government policy of providing home care for people with cases of mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 was successful in limiting hospital admissions as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) sought to effectively allocate health resources, the Taiwan Medical Association said on Sunday.
When the policy was first implemented in late April, the overall hospital admission rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan was more than 3 percent, but that has dropped to 1 percent, the association said in a statement.
As a result of the program, healthcare resources were freed up for the critically ill, it said.
The CECC introduced the policy after the daily number of COVID-19 cases rose past 1,500 on April 19.
Local governments then activated their home isolation schemes, in accordance with the CECC’s guidelines for home care management of confirmed mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, those with moderate or severe symptoms were being admitted to hospitals, while COVID-19 patients deemed as highly likely to develop severe infections and those unable to take care of themselves were being sent to special quarantine hotels.
On Sunday, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that those measures allowed people with mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 infections to receive medical care at home, reducing the risk of spreading the virus in communities.
He was responding to questions over the effectiveness of the policy, which cost the government NT$11.1 billion (US$356.73 million).
The measures are why Taiwan has the world’s fourth-lowest COVID-19 excess mortality rate — an evaluation of the efficacy of disease control — and the fourth-lowest cumulative confirmed COVID-19 death rate among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Chuang said, citing a report in The Economist.
The medical home care of confirmed COVID-19 cases includes remote consultations with doctors, and the remote prescription and home delivery of medicine, Chuang said.
“In the absence of such services, the number of deaths could have been much higher during the latest wave of COVID-19 infections,” he said.
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