Researchers at National Taiwan University’s College of Public Health yesterday said they would today release the findings of a mass COVID-19 antibody survey in Changhua County.
Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) and Tony Chen (陳秀熙), the former dean and deputy dean of the college respectively who are members of the survey project, issued a news conference invitation to reporters at noon yesterday.
The invitation came shortly after Chen, in a morning news conference, said he agrees with a remark by Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), that the results of the survey should be published.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Researchers at the college and the Changhua Public Health Bureau launched the project on June 11 to test 10,000 people from five high-risk groups for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Chan, who heads the project, on Sunday suddenly called off a presentation planned for Tuesday to publish the “mid-term” findings of the survey, sparking speculations over the reason.
Chan on Sunday said it was canceled because there was not enough time to finish administrative work, and Tony Chen on Monday said that the project was academic research and should go through peer review before being published.
Denying speculation that the CECC pressured the researchers to cancel the presentation, Chen Shih-chung on Tuesday said that the researchers should publish their findings, rather than “cover it up,” as doing so would spark more public debate.
Tony Chen yesterday said he cannot represent the college, as he is no longer its deputy dean, but speaking for himself as a professor, he thinks he has the responsibility to publish the findings.
The researchers would release the findings to the public as soon as possible and in a “service-oriented” fashion, he added.
“If this [the survey] is of public concern, I think we should go beyond academic limitations and explain it to people,” Tony Chen said, adding that as a professor, he can promise that the survey’s findings are important evidence that Taiwan’s disease prevention is guaranteed, and that community spread has not occurred in the nation.
At the CECC, yesterday afternoon when asked to respond to remarks by some specialists about his use of the phrase “cover up” to describe the cancelation of the presentation, Chen Shih-chung said he apologizes if he has offended anyone, adding that he was only expressing his wish for the report to be published.
The news conference invitation says today’s presentation would be held by Chan, Tony Chen and Changhua County Public Health Bureau Director Yeh Yen-po (葉彥伯), while the college’s new dean, Cheng Shou-hsia (鄭守夏), and Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesperson, have been invited.
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