The crisis caused by a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital is over, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a news conference in Taipei that the final polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests on the hospital’s employees and contract workers had been completed.
A final testing project was launched 14 days after the last confirmed case linked to the hospital cluster had visited the hospital, he said, adding that 2,135 employees received PCR tests from Wednesday to Friday, all of which were negative.
By 12am yesterday, a special electronic flag on the National Health Insurance (NHI) cards of the hospital’s employees and patients who were ordered to undergo self-health management had been removed, Chen said.
The center had on Jan. 24 ordered that all people who were hospitalized at Taoyuan General Hospital between Jan. 6 and Jan. 21, and any accompanying family members, be placed under home isolation immediately.
It also announced that a special virtual flag would be placed on the NHI cards of all hospital employees and people who had sought treatment at its outpatient departments or emergency room after Jan. 6, so that healthcare facilities would be more cautious if they sought medical attention.
Chen yesterday said that the center’s command post at the hospital had completed its task and the crisis had ended, so the task of returning to normal operations would be handled by the hospital’s administration.
“Taoyuan is not an epidemic area,” Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said at the CECC’s news conference, adding that a safety net had been set up and the virus did not result in any confirmed cases with an unknown infection source, “so visiting Taoyuan is as safe as visiting any other place in Taiwan.”
At the news conference, Taoyuan General Hospital superintendent Hsu Yung-nien (徐永年) bowed and said that he represented the hospital in apologizing for the cluster infection that led to 20 confirmed cases, more than 4,000 people placed under isolation and panic among the general public.
However, the hospital has felt support and love from the public, as well as the support of top officials in the central and local governments, including Cheng, who called him every evening since the outbreak began to ask what the hospital needed, Hsu said.
He also thanked the hospital’s employees for bravely remaining at their posts and taking care of patients through the crisis.
Hospital and Social Welfare Organizations Administration Commission Director Wang Pi-sheng (王必勝), head of the CECC’s command post at the hospital, said that the center did not want to place the hospital on lockdown, so low-risk patients were sent out of the hospital, high-risk healthcare professionals were put in isolation, and patients and their family members who were possible risks were later put in home isolation.
Meanwhile, the center reported three new imported cases of COVID-19, an Indonesian student in his 20s; a Taiwanese in his 30s who worked in Ghana and transited in Dubai; and an American in his 40s.
They all reported that they had or were experiencing symptoms upon arrival, so they were tested at the airport and stayed at a centralized quarantine facility while awaiting the test results, Chen said.
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