The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday released a set of revised criteria for reporting suspected COVID-19 cases, while also announcing its guidelines for disclosing patients’ personal information.
The center said that its advisory specialist panel revised the definition for “severe pneumonia with novel pathogens” — COVID-19 infection — by expanding the criteria needed to report suspected cases.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that physicians should report people for testing if they meet one of three clinical conditions: They have a fever, acute respiratory infection, or a lack of smell or taste; there is a clinical, radiological or pathological diagnosis of pneumonia; or the patient is suspected of having community-acquired pneumonia, but has no history of recent overseas travel.
“A lack of smell or taste is a new symptom added to the definition,” he said.
Chen added that doctors should also report people for testing if they meet one of three epidemiological criteria: They have had close contact with an infected person, including caring for them, spending time with them or being exposed to their bodily fluids; a cluster of cases occurred near the patient; or one of the first two criteria occurred in the 14 days before the patient experienced symptoms, visited or lived in another country, or had close contact with people from a country with cases of fever or respiratory symptoms.
“Generally, we hope that when doctors see a local patient that meets any of the criteria and the possibility of a COVID-19 infection cannot be excluded, they would send the patient for testing,” Chen said.
Asked about speculation that a lack of smell or taste might be associated with a mutated coronavirus strain in Europe, center advisory specialist panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said that a lack of smell or taste was not reported by people infected earlier, most of whom returned from China, but that several infected people returning from Europe or the US have reported it.
Panel experts suspect that a lack of smell or taste might be related to a mutation, but so far there is no scientific evidence to confirm their suspicion, he added.
Only 31 of 329 infected people (9.4 percent) reported the symptom, Chang said.
Some patients have reported a lack of smell and taste, while some have only reported a reduced sense of smell or taste, but the panel has so far not determined from observation of these cases how long the symptoms might last.
People have asked what information can be shared about infected people, so the center reviewed its regulations — including the Freedom of Government Information Act (政府資訊公開法), the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) and the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例) — and established guidelines for handling patients’ personal information, Chen said.
“The general guideline remains unchanged: We will only publicize patients’ information if it benefits the nation’s disease-prevention efforts,” he said.
Generally, an infected person’s age group, gender and residential area — city or county — as well as which public transportation they rode or public places they visited, and the types of people they came into contact with — such as a family member they lived with or a healthcare professional who treated them — would be disclosed, Chen added.
The person’s name, information from medical records, occupation or job title, as well as their place of work — private company or government sector — and hospital would typically not be made public, he said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique