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Mass-testing for COVID-19 could strain Taiwan's health system: CECC

ROC Central News Agency

08/25/2020 06:27 PM

Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Taiwan has avoided instituting large-scale testing for COVID-19 because of the strain that a glut of false positive and false negative test results could put on the nation's health system, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) reiterated Tuesday.

Chen, who also heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), made the comments following reports that Germany was considering replacing its mandatory testing of travelers arriving from high-risk areas with a quarantine-based policy, due to the overburdening of its testing capacity.

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Chen said countries have to base their public health policies on domestic conditions, but made clear that he opposes the implementation of mass COVID-19 testing on arrivals to Taiwan.

The CECC believes that such testing could produce many false positive and false negative results, creating "a very difficult burden" for the health authorities, and has therefore decided against following such a policy, he said.

During the same discussion, Chen responded to growing controversy involving a large-scale testing program for COVID-19 antibodies, which National Taiwan University's (NTU) College of Public Health conducted with Changhua County against the wishes of the CECC.

Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權), a professor at the college, abruptly cancelled a press conference to release the study's results a day earlier, citing a lack of time to conduct "administrative tasks." He did not provide a time or date for when it would be rescheduled.

Chen criticized the testing program for "drumming up discussion," only to "fold" at the last minute, and urged its leaders to provide an explanation to the public.

More seriously, Chen said the Ministry of Health and Welfare had received reports of possible scientific ethics violations from people involved in the study, which he said would be turned over to an institutional review board for investigation.

Chen denied that the college had cancelled its press conference under pressure from the CECC.

Rather, he went on, the testing program's leaders had broken with scientific convention by repeatedly discussing the study in public, before it had undergone peer review.

At this point, therefore, their results should be made public in order to bring the controversy to a close, Chen said.

(By Chen Wei-ting and Matthew Mazzetta)

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