New Taipei: 129 (Zhonghe 26), Taipei: 70 (Wanhua:31), Changhua: 28, Taoyuan: 16, Kaohsiung: 8 Taichung: 5, Keelung: 4, Yilan City: 3 Tainan CIty: 2 Hsinchu City: 2
There are 49 cases without clear sources of infection.
Chen said other counties start to have confirmed cases and from today, they will enhance warning to level 3 to the whole #Taiwan. Over half of Taiwan's counties now have cases.
Chen said there will be different stages of execution and all the criteria will be the same as Taipei and New Taipei. Chen said there are still no criteria to enhance the warning level to 4.
He kept mentioning that the whole country needs to execute the strategies in a united fashion, and if local government needs to seek support, the central government will offer them.
Chen said there will be nationwide #COVID19 meeting every day in order to coordinate existing resources and combat disinformation.
There will also now be an additional press conference in the morning to combat disinformation related to the outbreak and answer other questions that the media may have. He hopes this can help to clarify any doubts more quickly.
Chen kept saying he hopes to reduce the amount of disinformation to the lowest possible level and he also hopes citizens don't have to worry too much about the medical resources. The central government will also support local governments with their medical resources.
Chen re-iterated that there are enough medical resources now so citizens don't have to worry. Chen also said local governments need to prepare for setting up rapid testing stations and the whole nations needs to map out hotspots visited by the highest number of confirmed cases.
Chen kept saying that those without symptoms or need to be tested don't go and try to line up to get rapid testing because that will just be wasting the resources. He said the rapid testing resource should be left for those with contact history with those already infected.
Chen said the central government will require local health authorities to get in touch with those confirmed to have been infected within a certain period of time and they need to properly hospitalize them or put them at centralized quarantine.
Among all the latest cases, 80 linked with places in Wanhua, 73 linked with teahouses, 28 have to do with a family of grape sellers in Wanhua.
Chen called on citizens to actively work with the government and comply with the necessary regulations related to level three. He said personal responsibilities are really important.
Chen reiterated that #Taiwan needs to avoid any unnecessary foreign visitors to come.
There are now 440,400 AZ #COVID19 vaccines will arrive at 3:44 pm.
Chen said part of the vaccine distribution needs to be offered for the medical staff and those who might come into contact with confirmed patients.
Apart from medical staff, those who work for quarantine hotels or work at testing stations will be the prioritized groups. They will immediately have some discussion about how to allocate the vaccines properly.
The latest batch of #COVID19 vaccine needs to quickly be inspected, which will need one week until it can be used. The expiration date is August 31.
Overall, not all the vaccines will be controlled by the government but part of the vaccines will be allocated for those who will come into contact with confirmed #COVID19 patients.
Chen said some medical institutions will receive rapid test kits and there will be related guidelines for the usage and deployment of the #COVID19 rapid tests.
Chen said these rapid tests need to be carefully used and those businesses who might want to purchase and use it need to properly know the guidelines and the best practices.
Chen is calling on some entertainment venues that are still secretly operating against the rules will be severely punished, especially now the whole #Taiwan is entering into level 3 warning.
Chen said the effect of #Taiwan's public health response to the #COVID19 outbreak is performing pretty well and he hopes that the additional daily press conferences in the morning will further help to coordinate collaboration across the entire country.
There are 26 patients using ventilators and 3 using Ecmo.
Chen said anyone without contact history, recent history visiting hotspots or showing symptoms wouldn't need to be tested. He said the timing to get tested is important and if someone is tested negative at a wrong timing, it is not helpful.
He said delaying the speed to find out those existing #COVID19 cases due to the overwhelming number of people who just want to seek consolation by getting tested will be detrimental to #Taiwan's ability to identify new cases.
Chen said when there was no community spread of the virus, it's hard for the government to urge citizens to get vaccinated, but now with more than 1000 cases identified, the need to get vaccinated has increased.
#Taiwan has now vaccinated 245,008 people. The number of people getting vaccinated through the government-subsidized program has massively increased.
The nationwide level three warning will last until May 28 but there will be any adjustment on a rolling basis.
One dialysis center in Taipei also reported an internal cluster infection case and dozens of their medical staff and patients will now undergo quarantine.
#Taiwan's NTU Hospital has reported 10 confirmed cases yesterday and they were a cluster among themselves. But they were not medical staff and the whole hospital is now undergoing overall testing. But the 10 cases are not listed as today's confirmed cases today.
1213 people have been tested at the rapid testing stations across Taipei and 62 of them have been tested positive. The rate of tested positive is 5.1% and the previous day was more than 7%.
Chen said the need to elevate warning to level 4 is it needs to have more than 100 cases for two weeks in a row and more than 50% of the cases need to have unclear sources of infection. He believes that #Taiwan won't reach that stage.
Chen said local social welfare bureaus will try to support homeless people during the local outbreak and social workers will offer homeless people masks.
Patients with mild symptoms or asymptomatic will first be placed at centralized quarantine venues or quarantine hotels with a certain level of medical support. If their symptoms worsen, they will be transferred to hospitals.
Chen reminded citizens again that if they don't have a need to visit a hospital, they should avoid going to a hospital, which risks creating further burdens for the existing medical resources that are already stretched thin.
NTU has suspended some services as they are trying to clarify the extend of their cluster case so they have temporarily stop taking in new patients, including #COVID19 patients.
Chen is reminding citizens not to overwhelm the nationwide 1922 hotline dedicated to #COVID19. He is therefore now offering some answers for some FAQs:
Chen said if anyone visited any of the hotspots is not showing symptoms, they should just monitor their own health and if they have symtpoms, they should put on masks and try to get tested at the rapid testing stations.
Chen said anyone who has visited a hotspot that was visited by someone who is tested positive, doesn't necessarily already mean that they are a close contact.
He reiterated that if anyone is not a close contact, the risk of being infected is still relatively though, even though the current strain of the virus spreading around is the British variant.
Chen called on those who are waiting for their test results to wait patiently for their test results, as the testing volumes have now been pretty much overwhelmed.
All centralized quarantine venues will have regular medical visits and several times a day temperature and vital check. If any quarantined patients have deteriorated, they will immediately be transferred to hospitals.
There are 4500 centralized quarantine venues, including 11 quarantine hotels, and there are now still 2000 venues for centralized quarantine. They emphasized that the amount is enough.
Ok, that's it. I think I need a power nap after every 70-minute long live tweet. See you all tomorrow.
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