One of the COVID cases that was reported on Thursday had begun experiencing COVID symptoms more than one week before his diagnosis. He had also visited a doctor several times, but was not sent to a hospital for testing. Central Epidemic Command Center chief Chen Shih-chung said the clinic had been careless for failing to send the patient to be tested, as he worked at a quarantine hotel. But the Taiwan Primary Care Association says the clinic had no way of knowing that the patient was a high risk person, as there was no indication of where he worked in his health records.

This clinic in New Taipei’s Sanchong District has pulled down the shutters. A sign on the side says it won’t reopen until May 11. That’s because Case #1,120 recently came to see the doctor here. The patient worked in housekeeping at a hotel in Taoyuan where many China Airlines pilots quarantine after returning to Taiwan. The man had no history of foreign travel. His main duties at the hotel were cleaning rooms and buying things for guests. He developed a cough and a runny nose on April 17 and saw a doctor three times in one week. On April 27, he was tested for COVID and diagnosed with the disease. Health minister Chen had previously said the local clinic had failed to notice the case due to inattentiveness. The Taiwan Primary Care Association thinks otherwise.

Lin Yung-zen
Taiwan Primary Care Association
The workers at quarantine hotels are a very high-risk group. Every day they are with people who may be infected. How come that isn’t noted in the health records system? If your records have the note, and I see you have a health problem, I would absolutely send you straight to get tested at a hospital. It’s normal for patients with breathing issues to visit the doctor three times.

The doctor says clinics can’t treat each of their many patients as COVID patients. He says the problem in this case was that workers at quarantine hotels, who are at high risk of infection, are not listed as such in their NHI card data. This makes it hard for local clinics to see who truly is at risk. In addition, the doctor who attended to patient #1,120 says he simply thought it was a cold, as the patient did not reveal his occupation or his contact history.

Huang Li-min
NTU Children’s Hospital director
We need rapid testing tools. It can’t be that every time a patient comes, doctors have to put on PPE, spend 20 minutes collecting a sample, sending it to the CDC and then waiting two days for a result. This is very hard for front-line clinics to do.

Hou Yu-ih
New Taipei mayor
If quarantine hotel employees don’t feel well and don’t report it, they unintentionally become a blind spot and vulnerability for epidemic prevention. We need to put our hearts into investigating the matter.

Six pilots who had stayed at the hotel where Case #1,120 worked have also been diagnosed with COVID. Contact tracing is still ongoing to prevent the virus from spreading in the community.