TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said he agrees with scholars that “reporting case numbers is already meaningless” as total daily COVID-19 cases in the country continue a precipitous climb past the 1,000 threshold.

As case numbers rise higher, reporting on them becomes less and less meaningful, Chen said on Saturday (April 16). He added that just reporting numbers in hard-hit areas will suffice, according to FormosaTV.

The government has already shifted its focus from the scale of the current outbreak to “reducing disasters," Chen went on. It is actively involved in vaccine roll out, readying medicines, and optimizing treatment channels for mild and severe cases.

Asked whether he concurred with a prediction by National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University’s Professor Hong Tsi-ren (洪子仁) that Taiwan’s current outbreak will last until September and at its peak reach nearly 990,000 local cases and 1,200-7,000 deaths, Chen said the data sets used cannot always be identical. “Each research institute has its own mathematical models and algorithms,” he added.

“Only time will tell whether or not this is an accurate estimate,” he stated.