US President Joe Biden wants 70 percent of US adults to have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine by the July 4 holiday, and has made vaccinating adolescents a key part of the next phase of the country’s immunization campaign.
However, targeting US teens is a controversial move among many experts, who say that it is a serious mistake to use the world’s limited supply of doses on a low-risk population while the COVID-19 pandemic surges in countries such as India and Brazil.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech in March said that their two-dose regimen was shown to be safe and highly effective in a trial of 2,260 12-to-15-year-olds.
Photo: Bloomberg
An emergency use authorization is expected in the coming days, and Biden on Tuesday told White House reporters that “if that announcement comes, we are ready to move immediately.”
The president’s address comes as the nation’s immunization campaign is stalling after hitting a peak early last month.
More than 56 percent of US adults have received one or more shots, but as the rate of uptake falls, officials are devising new ways to reach vaccine holdouts.
These include discounts to shoppers who get vaccinated at grocery stores, promotions for fans at sports stadiums and more vaccines at rural health clinics, Biden said.
The federal government is also working on a program with pharmacies and pediatricians nationwide to reach the country’s estimated 17 million 12-to-15-year-olds ahead of school reopening in the fall.
However, many experts have voiced concern whether now is the right moment to reach this group as the global situation deteriorates.
The issue of vaccine disparity has been brought into sharp focus by India, which on Tuesday reported more than 350,000 new cases and recorded nearly 3,500 deaths — more than anywhere in the world.
“The overwhelming majority of 15-year-olds, we know are not at high risk of severe complications from COVID,” said Craig Spencer, an emergency room doctor and director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at Columbia University.
“It is absolutely raging around the world and we’re talking about how we’re going to vaccinate an incredibly low-risk population, when the overwhelming majority of healthcare workers around the world have zero protection,” he said.
Priya Sampathkumar, chair of Infection Prevention and Control at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, added that beyond being an ethics issue, exporting more vaccines is in the US’ own best interest.
“Vaccinating more people in the US is not going to help us if the variants in India, Nepal and South Asia get out of control and hit our shores,” she said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RSS