Thread by @WilliamYang120

Breaking: #Taiwan reported 287 local #COVID19 and 170 delayed reported cases, and there are 457 local Cases in total. 3 imported cases.

New Taipei; 142, Taipei: 77, (Wanhua: 38) Taoyuan: 23 Pingtung: and Nantou: 8 cases each. Yilan: 6 Keelung, Taichung and Changhua: 5 each. Tainan: 2 Hualien, Chiayi, Hshinchu city, Hsinchu County: 1 each.

Wanhua: 161 Tea parlor: 25

Unidenfied sources: 70

6 new deaths.

Five of the six death cases have histories of chronic disease. It looks like the government will now report all delayed cases every day, creating a new category for that and then also reporting all the added-up numbers.

There were 570 delayed cases being reported over the last two days and Chen just revealed the breakdown of each counties each day. The delayed cases have dropped and there are some changes to the daily counts from previous days.

Taipei and New Taipei City are still the top two epicenters of the local outbreak. The rate of positive result has a slight uptick from yesterday, from 2.9% to 3.4%. But the highest point of the rate of positive result has dropped to lower than 6%.

Chen said the slight uptick is caused by the growing number of #COVID19 cases from Taipei and New Taipei City. These numbers are only for reference as Chen said the rapid testing stations didn't cover the whole city.

Chen said there are still some ongoing transmissions at the community level, based on the daily numbers, including the adjusted results.

The rate of positive results from testing stations in other counties is much lower because the number of cases and the chances of community spread is lower than Taipei and New Taipei.

Chen said the government will try to avoid keep reporting the delayed cases because it will delay the assessment and reporting of the government.

Chen said the government has improved the flaws of the reporting system. He said the government has reduced the columns that need to be filled out during the case-reporting process and the flow of processing tests will need to be simplified too.

Chen said the PCR tests' processing rate used to be slow and now the government is subsidizing test-processing centers to buy new machines and the maximum subsidy is 5 million NTD.

He said the goal is to automate the test process and that will accelerate the speed of test processing.

Currently, the government will upload the test results to a system and the CDC will receive these results. Now they will first report all the positive cases and not input the negative cases.

The website will be accessible for all authorized parties and now all local governments will be able to conduct investigations based on the results.

Chen said after the case-reporting process has been simplified, the speed of processing tests should be faster. He said the improvement of machines will also allow the quality and process of tests to be improved.

The health bureau is now going to access the rapid test results through the cloud healthcare system, and citizens will be able to use the cloud system's profiles to learn about their rapid-test results.

So far, the profiles on the cloud healthcare system will be used as the place where every citizen can already view their relevant #COVID19 test results.

Chen is emphasizing again that the reason why the government needs to adjust the daily cases is because the system was delayed and slowed when there are a huge number of cases emerging so the government needs to systematically solve the problem.

There are 1093 patients quarantined at the centralized quarantine venues set up by the CECC and more than 95% of the patients come from Taipei and New Taipei.

The government continues to increase the number of the centralized quarantine patients and more than 800 venues will be added to the list in the coming days.

These venues are all for asymptomatic patients or patients with mild symptoms.

A Japan airline's ground staff was tested positive for #COVID19 and the person usually works from the Songshan Airport.

Chen said the timing to downgrade the #COVID19 alert level will depend on the trend of the outbreak and he said the upcoming week will be very important for the outbreak.

Chen said the government will widely recruit people with experience of processing and conducting tests to join the national team to increase the efficiency and capacity of testing.

One of the death case today was a man in his 80s even though he has no history of chronic disease. He began to have difficulty breathing on May 17 and died on May 20.

Chen said there are a few number of new cases emerging from regions outside of the hotspots like Wanhua and Banqiao. He said which is why the government widened the range of the level three alert.

Taipei Mayor @KP_Taipei suggested that using PCR to confirm cases is too slow and Chen said they are seriously considering whether they should just rely on rapid tests to determine confirmed cases, because he is afraid that it could increase the rate of false positive.

He said the government is now trying different rapid tests to see which test can produce the most effective results that will meet the government's goals.

Once the government has established a relevant protocol, they will release them for the public to follow.

Chen said the government used to use a very strict regulation for quarantine and now the government is going to loosen the criteria for quarantine, making it one person per room rather than sticking with the one person per household for quarantine.

The move is to try to relax the capacity for quarantining #COVID19 patients.

Chen said the necessary doctor's visit and surgeries can still be processed but the government will be slightly more strict about determining what kind of surgeries should be processed as planned.

Health officials said the overall rate of patients with serious symptoms and the death rate isn't that much higher under the British variant versus the original #COVID19 virus.

The only difference is that this outbreak concentrated in many areas with older people, which is why the rate of patients with serious symptoms has increased.

Chen said these numbers are changing on a rotational basis and he said the government is continuing to offer all kinds of support for handling new patients.

A journalist claimed that some businesses are urging the government to import BNT #COVID19 vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Chen said there are many information that need to be handled and he said the Chinese company need to directly approach the government so they can have a better understanding about the full scope of the deal and how they might be able to offer the vaccines.

Chen said the case report and test processing procedures can allow local health officials to track each case's progress and they can also plan the quarantine and investigation accordingly.

Before these cases enter the national reporting system, no one can be sure who is tested positive or negative. They said once the cases enter the national system, local governments can be updated simultaneously like the central government.

Chen said the level three alert is still in place and the adjustment will be made accordingly.

Officials said if there are confirmed patients who can't be reached, the government will activate the police to help search for these individuals.

Officials said if the number of cases didn't decrease after the 5 to 7 day window, it shows that the overall situation of the outbreak isn't very hopeful. But the reason why the upcoming week is important is because after a week of level three alert, it will determine whether ...

... the measures have worked and whether the infection chain has been broken off. After two weeks, next week's trend could serve as an important indicator of the outbreak and whether the measures can be adjusted or not.

Around 480 cases still have unidentifiable sources of infection and most of them concentrated in Taipei and New Taipei. It accounts for about 16% of the overall cases.

So far, the earliest community-level cases seem to start around 4/20 and the possible sources of infection aren't entirely clear. Possible sources of infection include the pilots or the tea parlors in Wanhua.

The actual source of initial infection is still unclear but the genome sequence is consistent. So far, they are not directly pointing to the China Airline pilots and they need to determine after they have conducted very thorough investigations.

Chen said the overall speed of processing cases is increasing after the CECC held additional press conference and he said no one can be disassociated from this outbreak and everyone should combat it in a united way.

He called on the citizens to monitor their own health and be very careful with their own behaviors. He said everyone should contribute to the battle against the oubreak.

Mission complete, BYE.