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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 CECC highlights six prevention measures for markets
People shop at Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co’s Second Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
The Central Epidemic Command Center （CECC） yesterday stressed six COVID-19 control measures for markets, and announced a set of new guidelines that are to be issued in the next two days in response to several infection clusters reported at wholesale markets in the past week.
Eighty-three infections associated with Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co’s （台北農產運銷） First Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market （第一果菜批發市場） and 43 infections linked to Huannan Market （環南市場）, both in Taipei’s Wanhua District （萬華）, have been confirmed in the past week.
The New Taipei City Government on Saturday also confirmed that 19 workers at a poultry marketing cooperative in the city’s Taishan District （泰山區）, the largest poultry slaughterhouse in northern Taiwan, tested positive for COVID-19.
As the CECC last week recommended enhanced measures for wholesale markets, including mandatory COVID-19 screening of all personnel, especially in Taipei and New Taipei City, the two municipalities announced plans to vaccinate the workers as soon as possible.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung （陳時中）, who heads the center, yesterday said that while the center would issue new guidelines for markets in the next one or two days, it has also suggested six main COVID-19 control measures that involve managing the health of workers, controlling crowd flow, implementing hand hygiene, recommending personal protective equipment, disinfecting the environment and responding to confirmed cases.
If management personnel at the markets understand the measures well, instruct their employees and cooperate with the government’s policies, they would be more efficient at responding to new cases rather than waiting for the health department to step in to control the situation, Chen said.
As Taipei and New Taipei City have experience in dealing with cluster infections at wholesale markets, the center hopes that screening can be done regularly and contact tracing conducted more precisely, he said.
The previous definition of “close contacts” might be difficult to enforce for those who should be placed under isolation at markets, so once a vendor or worker is confirmed to have COVID-19, neighboring vendors who were at the site when the case was contagious would all be placed under isolation, he added.
After saying that Taipei was capable of dealing with the clusters on its own, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je （柯文哲） on Saturday said he would ask Hospital and Social Welfare Organizations Administration Commission Director Wang Pi-sheng （王必勝） to help conduct polymerase chain reaction testing at the markets.
Asked if the change in Taipei’s attitude might indicate that it has insufficient large-scale testing capacity, Chen said the center is glad to cooperate with local governments, as long as they can work together to bring COVID-19 under control.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
