Most of Taiwan’s pandemic-era mandates have already been lifted, but that doesn’t mean that the country is out of the woods yet. A recent surge in COVID-19 cases is putting a heavy administrative burden on hospitals to stay on top of all the medical paperwork.
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Taiwan is facing its fourth wave of COVID-19 cases, just over a month after the country lifted one of its last mask mandates. Now more people are stocking up on rapid tests.
Taipei Pharmacists Association spokesperson Wang Ming-yuan (王明媛) says the demand for rapid tests has gone up in May. She says she thinks changes in quarantine restrictions and mask mandates are causing an increase in COVID-19 cases.
Wang says her pharmacy suddenly sold out of rapid tests, but they are ordering more this week. She adds that there’s no issue with Taiwan’s rapid test supply.
After Taiwan downgraded COVID to a Category 4 communicable disease in May, it also switched its case reporting system from text messages to paper documents. Handling this paperwork has caused the workload for some disease management personnel to double. A wave of these medical workers are now resigning due to the surge in their work responsibilities.
Infection Control Society of Taiwan head Chen I-chun (陳宜君) says receiving paper documents from sick people could potentially infect others. She adds that it’s not possible for workers to take care of the high volume of complicated demands. Chen says infection control workers are already attending to many patients and cases, but the government also expects them to handle all quarantine paperwork within 24 hours.
Taiwan’s CDC says the electronic reporting system has already been decommissioned, but the center is looking into how to relieve hospitals’ administrative burdens. The CDC says the reporting window for quarantine paperwork may extend to 72 hours as early as next week.
Only time will tell whether Taiwan will be able to keep this fourth COVID wave under control without overwhelming its medical workers.