While the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) for COVID-19 is to be disbanded on Monday next week, a healthcare response plan, as well as sufficient inventories of personal protective equipment (PPEs), anti-viral medication, vaccines and rapid test kits, is in place to deal emergencies if a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerges and causes a spike in severe cases, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said yesterday.
The CECC on Tuesday said that it is to be dissolved next week as COVID-19 is to be downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 notifiable communicable disease.
Addressing public concern over the possibility of COVID-19 cases rising after the CECC is disbanded, Chuang said people should not worry as the nation has sufficient PPEs and anti-viral medication in stock and the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s COVID-19 supervisory task force would launch proper response measures if hospitalizations increase.
The response measures include expanding health capacity by reopening “COVID-19 designated wards” — 3 percent of hospital beds in emergency responsible hospitals, totaling about 1,850 beds, for the first phase; and 5 percent, or about 3,070 beds, for the second phase — and reopening “centralized qurantine facilities” — about 1,500 and 2,000 rooms in the first and second phases respectively, Chuang said
As for PPEs, there are about 276 million medical-grade masks in stock, or five to 10 masks per person, which can be released to the public in case of an emergency, Chuang said, adding that domestic production capacity is about 12 million masks per day, which could be increased to 30 million if needed.
There are about 60.79 million rapid test kits in storage, and a daily domestic production capacity of about 200,000 kits, which can be increased to 650,000 kits in emergency situations, he said.
Additional demand can be filled by imports — about 25 million kits within a month, he added.
As for anti-viral medication, there are 95,548 doses of Remdesivir in stock, which can fill demand for 265 days; 438,988 courses of the oral drug Paxlovid, expected to last for 510 days; and 71,212 courses of the oral drug Molnupiravir, which should be enough for 285 days, he said, adding that there are open-ended contracts for importing more.
Additionally, there are more than 5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in stock, including about 3.2 million doses of Moderna’s Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine for people aged six and older, with a contract with the US firm to import 1.5 million doses of the latest vaccine in future, Chuang said.
If panic buying of PPEs were to occur, causing a supply-demand imbalance, a rationing scheme might be reintroduced, he said.
The health ministry will continue to monitor inventory levels and handle expired items to ensure that there are sufficient resources to protect public health, he said.
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