The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is planning to issue large numbers of rapid tests to different parts of Taiwan depending on the severity of COVID-19 infections, it said Monday.

Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung (???) said areas deemed to be high-risk according to the CECC’s planned rating system will be able to ask the CECC to release COVID-19 rapid tests to residents of those areas.

The current plan is to issue 200,000 rapid tests per batch to the areas that apply for them, said Chen, who noted that the CECC will order additional rapid tests beyond the more than 8 million that have already been purchased.

Taiwan is currently in the midst of its first outbreak of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, with cases exceeding 400 per day on Monday for the third day in a row and over 100 for the 11th day in a row.

Though case numbers have remained relatively stable, the current outbreak has highlighted the need for widely accessible testing to identify and track cases in locations where cluster infections have occurred, leading to greater demand for rapid tests.

One of the potential uses for rapid tests under CECC plans will be to test individuals who are required to isolate at home on the 10th day of their quarantine, in part to reduce the risk of having them leave their homes to get a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

Some have raised the concern that people in quarantine could falsify the results of the test to get out of quarantine, but Lo Yi-chun (???), the deputy head of the CECC’s Emergency Response Group, felt the concern was overstated.

Lo said the results of the rapid tests on the 10th day of quarantine are more to give people peace of mind as recent studies concluded that people with the virus are not as contagious on the 10th day as they were soon after contracting COVID-19.

He added that adjustments to the plan could be made after its launch if technical difficulties are discovered.

Meanwhile, on whether people between the ages of 12 and 17 will be allowed to receive a third vaccine shot, Chen said further discussion with experts was needed before existing policies can be altered.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel