The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday disclosed the nation’s capacity for treating COVID-19 patients, adding that it has 34 facilities capable of analyzing 3,800 tests per day.
The global outbreak of COVID-19 is still severe, and clustered infections in local communities or healthcare facilities have been reported in many countries, said Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元), who heads the CECC’s medical response division.
The center has six main strategies to ensure that Taiwan’s healthcare system has sufficient medical capacity, he said.
Photo: CNA
While about 1,500 tests are being performed every day, the nation’s “expanded COVID-19 testing capacity” has reached about 3,800 tests per day, which can be analyzed at 34 testing facilities — 16 in northern Taiwan, 10 in southern Taiwan, seven in central Taiwan and one in eastern Taiwan, he said.
The “enhanced community-based surveillance” strategy includes increasing tests on high-risk groups and establishing a network of testing stations in communities, he said.
High-risk groups include healthcare workers, airline crew members, passengers who returned on a flight from New York in which 10 confirmed cases were detected and people who visited overcrowded tourist spots during the four-day Tomb Sweeping holiday, Hsueh said.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
There are 163 hospitals capable of performing tests on suspected cases, 143 responsive and isolation hospitals designated for admitting patients with mild symptoms, and 52 regional hospitals and medical centers that can take in patients with severe symptoms, he said.
There are four phases in the “expanding capacity for hospitalizing COVID-19 patients” strategy for designated responsive hospitals, Hsueh said.
They include admitting patients to negative-pressure isolation wards or single rooms, setting up exclusive COVID-19 departments, suspending the admittance of non-COVID-19 patients and resettling non-COVID-19 patients to other hospitals, he said.
As part of the “making an inventory of hospital beds and respirators” strategy, he said that there are 2,713 hospitals beds, including in negative-pressure isolation wards and COVID-19-designated wards, that can be used for treating infected patients, with 1,597 beds, or 59 percent, still vacant.
That capacity could expand to 20,985 beds if a widespread local outbreak occurs, Hsueh said.
About 1,300 of the 9,932 respirators in the nation are available, and the center expects to increase capacity to about 2,200, he added.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said the center also hopes to continue its strategy of “expanding the capacity of centralized quarantine” from 1,553 rooms at 13 quarantine centers to more than 3,000 rooms.
Hsueh said the center has created principles for “implementing a triage system to admit or refer COVID-19 patients” to different levels of hospitals according to each patient’s condition.
Meanwhile, the CECC reported three new cases in Taiwan, all imported.
Chen said that the three confirmed cases are two women and one man, all in their 20s, who returned from France, the UK and the US between Monday and Saturday last week.
Case No. 374, a man who studies in the UK, and case No. 375, a woman who visited her family in France, as well as visiting Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK during her trip, were under home quarantine when they experienced symptoms and reported for testing, he said.
Case No. 376 is a woman who studies in the US. She returned to Taiwan on the same flight — China Airlines (華航) Flight CI011 from New York to Taipei on Monday last week — as several other previously reported cases, so she was under home isolation when she began experiencing symptoms on Thursday last week, Chen said.
As 10 passengers on the flight have tested positive for COVID-19 so far, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that the center has decided to test all of its 323 passengers and 13 crew members.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS