The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday announced an expansion of the second COVID-19 vaccine booster shot program, doubling the number of eligible groups to eight. Previously eligible were people aged 65 or older, long-term care facility residents, immunocompromised adults and healthcare workers. Since the expansion, which started on Friday, workers at harbors, airports and quarantine and social welfare facilities can also get their fourth dose. The expansion seeks to protect people at risk of having contact with imported COVID-19 cases, the center said, citing a 28 percent increase in imported cases last week, including cases of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, amid eased border controls.
The CECC in May recommended additional booster shots for older people, long-term care facility residents and immunocompromised adults, saying they would reduce the risk of servere illness and death, while on Wednesday it said that the other five groups should consider a fourth booster shot depending on their individual risk assessment.
Vaccination rates have been increasing since a local COVID-19 outbreak started in April. In the past few weeks, public debate increasingly focused on whether people should get a second booster and why not everyone is eligible. While most experts agree that a third dose significantly enhances immune protection, which wanes within months of the first two shots, it is less clear whether a fourth dose is necessary.
When the US Food and Drug Administration in March introduced second booster shots for immunocompromised people and people over 50, the agency said that there were no new safety concerns, citing data from Israel, where the safety of second booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine had been studied on 700,000 recipients, including 600,000 people aged 60 or older. However, a larger-scale study in Israel showed that a second booster dose’s additional protection against infection began to wane just four weeks after it was given and no additional protection could be measured after eight weeks, while additional protection against severe illness was still significant after six weeks.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in late April said: “Public health benefit of administering a second booster dose is clearest in populations aged 80 years and older.” If the virus were to continue to circulate widely, older people should get a second booster shot immediately, it said, adding that whether younger people should get it depends on longer-term trends.
A report by the WHO in May reviewed seven studies on second booster dose rollouts — six from Israel and one from Canada. It concluded that there is “some short-term benefit of an additional booster dose of mRNA vaccine in health workers, those over 60 years of age or with immunocompromising conditions.” It added that “data to support an additional dose for healthy younger populations are limited” and that “in younger people, the benefit is minimal.”
However, some Taiwanese who are eligible for the second booster dose are still concerned about its safety and effectiveness, and wonder whether they should wait for the rollout of next-generation, Omicron-specific vaccines. Local experts on Chinese-language media or social media have urged people at high risk to immediately get a second booster shot, saying that they offer extra protection against severe illness and death from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the CECC has not done much to promote them. Although the course of the pandemic is hard to predict, and Pfizer and Moderna last month released trial data on their Omicron-specific jabs, the CECC should do more to help people decide whether they should get their fourth shot now or later.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
RSS