The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday urged the government to change the nation’s COVID-19 testing methods and test all people under home quarantine as well as all travelers leaving Taiwan.
The KMT caucus held a news conference to suggest alternative strategies after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday reported that 19 travelers from Taiwan had tested positive for COVID-19 upon arriving in other countries — 18 in the Philippines and one in Japan.
KMT caucus whip Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) said the COVID-19 situation in Taiwan might worsen as temperatures begin to drop, and that the surge in exported cases might be a warning sign.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“Should the government not implement better border control measures in advance?” he asked.
As other countries have different COVID-19 screening mechanisms at their borders, testing travelers before they depart Taiwan would not only protect Taiwanese, but also the nation’s reputation, he said.
If exported cases are reported frequently, it might hinder the nation’s efforts to ease border controls, as well as an economic and tourism recovery, Lin added.
Wang Jen-hsien (王任賢), a physician at China Medical University Hospital’s Department of Infection Control, told the news conference that the CECC claims Taiwan has no local infections.
However, several people tested positive in the Philippines after traveling from Taiwan, indicating that there had been false-negative and false-positive cases, and that Taiwan’s screening method is flawed, Wang said.
The current testing method employs a diagnostic kit used in hospitals to diagnose patients, not to screen them, so the government should evaluate its screening method and find other test kits to screen departing passengers, he said.
Wang said the diagnostic kit used in Taiwan is the most expensive in the world, costing NT$6,000 to NT$10,000 per test, and also requires a physician’s prescription and a government request notice.
Taiwan has shunned wide-scale testing, but people in home quarantine might be asymptomatic carriers who might pose high risks, he said.
The government should implement wide-scale testing on people in home quarantine and on travelers departing Taiwan, Wang said.
Taiwan Society of Preventive Medicine chairman and KMT Legislator Arthur Chen (陳宜民) said that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been doing “window dressing,” but lacks actual disease prevention measures, such as establishing a screening platform or transferring technology to healthcare facilities.
COVID-19 testing in Taiwan is unreasonably expensive, reducing the willingness of people with no symptoms to get tested, he said, adding that 35 to 40 percent of the confirmed cases in the US were asymptomatic, so the problem should not be taken lightly.
A man contracted COVID-19 twice four months apart, showing that the body’s immune response to the novel coronavirus might wane in a few months, Chen said, questioning the effectiveness of a vaccine.
The complicated situation might not be solved by achieving herd immunity or developing vaccines, he said, adding that the CECC’s claim of “precise disease prevention” is a “deceptive joke,” because not a single case should be left out in disease prevention.
While Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, questioned the accuracy of the tests conducted in the Philippines, KMT Legislator Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭) said that the Philippines has confirmed more than 290,000 cases, showing that it has a greater testing capacity than Taiwan.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman, said the center deals with each exported case carefully, and more than 200 close contacts have been tested for COVID-19, but none have tested positive and no local outbreak have been detected.
Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎), a physician at National Taiwan University Hospital’s division of pediatric infectious diseases and a member of the CECC’s specialist advisory panel, said that if the Philippines often reports positive cases among travelers from Taiwan, the government could consider conducting wide-scale testing on travelers to the Philippines, adding that further discussion is needed to determine who should shoulder the extra financial burden.
Additional reporting by Lee I-chia
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary