Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 last week increased 30.9 percent from a week earlier, while hospital visits due to enterovirus increased 5.7 percent, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan has again entered the epidemic stage for influenza.
Last week, 817 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19, an increase of 30.9 percent from 624 cases a week earlier, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said.
Forty people died from COVID-19 last week, slightly more than the 38 reported the previous week, he said.
Photo: CNA
Domestic COVID-19 activity has been rising for five consecutive weeks, but the increase in hospitalizations last week was lower than the previous two weeks, CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said.
A CDC simulation predicted that the number of weekly hospitalizations could peak in the middle of next month, while COVID-19 activity might plateau in the second half of next month, with case numbers gradually dropping after one to two months, she said.
Meanwhile, a physician on Monday shared on Facebook a screen grab of a notification, presumably from the National Health Insurance prescription system, informing him that he could not prescribe Molnupiravir as there is a shortage.
The physician asked why the CDC previously said there was no shortage of oral antiviral drugs for COVID-19.
Molnupiravir is listed for conditional use, and is limited to people who cannot take Paxlovid because of health conditions, Tseng said.
As of Saturday, there were 103,523 courses of Remdesivir, 230,759 courses of Paxlovid and 8,562 courses of Molnupiravir still available, she said.
However, due to an increase in COVID-19 activity, the CDC has purchased 20,000 courses of Molnupiravir, which are expected to arrive on Thursday next week, and would be delivered to hospitals the next day, she said.
Although the previous epidemic period for seasonal flu ended in April, there were more than 95,000 hospital visits for flu-like illnesses last week, and about 12 percent were at emergency departments, Tseng said.
The epidemic threshold for seasonal flu is when 11 percent or more of the hospital visits for flu-like illnesses are at emergency departments, and that figure was more than 11 percent for four consecutive weeks, meaning Taiwan entered the flu epidemic period at the beginning of this month, she said.
The flu epidemic period usually falls in winter, with summer epidemics being less common, Tseng said, adding that the last summer epidemic was recorded in the 2016 to 2017 flu season.
As children are expected to visit more public spaces during the summer vacation, the CDC reminds parents and caregivers to pay close attention to their health and help them practice good hygiene, she said.
There were also 18,931 hospital visits for enterovirus last week, a 5.7 percent increase from the previous week, Guo said.
Coxsackie A virus has been the main strain circulating around Taiwan over the past four weeks, he added.
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