(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) High mortality rate of elderly cases Taiwan public health experts call for adjustment of vaccination sequence
China News Agency, Taipei, June 5th. According to statistics from the Taiwanese authorities' "Pandemic Epidemic Command Center" on the 5th, the average age of deaths in this round of local epidemics is 72 years old, and the average age is only 8.3 days from onset to death.
In this regard, many Taiwanese public health experts said that the high mortality rate of elderly cases and the short time between onset and death, the authorities should list the elderly as priority vaccination targets.
According to Taiwan media reports such as the Central News Agency and United News Network, the "command center" announced on the 5th that 476 new confirmed cases of local new coronary pneumonia and 35 new cases of "corrected regression" were still mainly distributed in New Taipei and Taipei; the new addition was announced on the same day. There were 37 deaths, most of whom were over 60 years old, and the youngest was over 30 years old. Among them, 5 cases were diagnosed after death.
Since the outbreak of the local epidemic on May 11, a total of 9,142 local confirmed cases have been added in Taiwan, and 212 deaths have been announced. The fatality rate of confirmed cases in this round of epidemic has risen to 2%.
A few days ago, long-term care institutions in Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung and other places have successively announced infection incidents, and more than 180 people have been infected.
Therefore, the "command center" recently announced that it would move the "long-term care institution care group" from sixth to fifth in the order of vaccination, ranking it among medical staff, authorities, and epidemic prevention personnel (including airport staff) in all counties and cities. After high-risk work contacts and those who need to leave the country due to special circumstances, "the elderly over 75 years old" ranks sixth.
Chen Yimin, chairman of the Taiwan Association of Preventive Medicine, pointed out in an interview with a reporter from China News Agency that from the current situation of infections and deaths, people with chronic diseases and elderly people are susceptible to new coronary pneumonia, and the mortality rate is high.
To this end, he once again called on the authorities to give priority to long-term care institutions and the 65-year-old population to arrange vaccinations. In particular, long-term care institutions should be listed as the third priority, instead of just shifting from sixth to fifth.
Su Yiren, the former head of the "Disease Control Bureau" of the Taiwan authorities, also said in an interview with Taiwan media that vaccination is one of the main measures for epidemic prevention. It should start with the order of vaccination. In addition to maintaining the priority of medical personnel, the elderly in long-term care institutions also need it. Prioritize consideration.
The director of National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital Huang Limin said that epidemic prevention is most afraid of “nosocomial infection” and “institutional infection”. The latter is even more worrying because the long-term care institutions have insufficient manpower and insufficient professional training. In addition, the residents are mostly elderly people. The virus enters, there is a fear of many severe and death cases.
It is recommended that the authorities arrange for the staff and residents of long-term care institutions to be vaccinated as soon as possible.
According to expert suggestions, many counties and cities have adjusted their vaccination policies on the 5th.
New Taipei and Kaohsiung will prioritize vaccinations for people over 75 years old when the vaccines arrive.
According to official statistics, as of June 5, Taiwan has obtained a total of 2.117 million doses of the new crown pneumonia vaccine; since the first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines were vaccinated on March 22, the total number of vaccinations in Taiwan has been 678,000.
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