COVID-19 Has Intruded into Hospitals, How Could Epidemic Prevention Use "Sporadic Cases" to Describe the Situation?

COVID-19 Has Intruded into Hospitals, How Could Epidemic Prevention Use "Sporadic Cases" to Describe the Situation?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 1, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

The COVID-19 epidemic has spread to the entire world; the WHO warned a week ago that the number of cases outside of Mainland China has kept expanding. At the same time, with respect to the epidemic situation in our country, the number of local cases has rapidly increased; what cannot be slighted is that the virus has crossed the hospital defense line.

The Central Epidemic Command Center claims that elevating its status to Level 1 was a deployment to cope with the advanced development of the epidemic situation internationally, and that Taiwan was still a "sporadic community infection". However, in actuality, in less than half a month, local cases have overtaken cross-border transmission cases, and cases of undetermined origin of infection have climbed to three, all because patients became confirmed cases after being hospitalized. In addition, aside from the foreign nursing aide who became a confirmed case in the hospital, there was at least one case of infection by hospital staff inside the hospital. This shows two big trends: the hospital defense line has been invaded; among the four requirements for community spread, only sustained infection chain and extensive cluster infections have not yet been met.

The Tsai government’s epidemic prevention deployment started earlier than that of other countries, but too many political considerations led to frequent chaos; plus everything seemed to be under control for a time, so it slighted to fortify hospital defense lines. The gates of the country cannot possibly be completely locked up; in addition, as the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday is approaching, the medical care system’s challenges have been gradually becoming arduous. The government should not be limited to the labeling myth of epidemic control numbers or whether there is community spread; the expansion of the epidemic situation is a big trend and nobody would blame the government for pragmatically dealing with it. The battle flames have long expanded from borders to hospitals; granted that community fires were sporadic, if the hospitals are lost, could this war for epidemic prevention be sustained?

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