Eligibility for COVID-19 vaccination is to be expanded to the top eight priority groups on Thursday next week, the The Central Epidemic Command Center announced yesterday.
The seventh priority group comprises workers who maintain social security and normal societal functions, which includes examination staff, teachers, military personnel and national security staff, wholesale market frontline workers and frontline journalists.
It also includes staff working on essential national infrastructure at Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and the Taiwan Railways Administration; oil, gas, water and power supply facilities; and communication infrastructure companies.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Post office clerks, disease prevention personnel at science parks, childcare workers and household registration system technicians are also included in the group.
In high-risk areas — Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan — taxi drivers, delivery service workers, bus drivers, truck drivers, traditional market vendors, and supermarket and convenience store clerks are also to be included in the seventh priority group.
The eighth priority group comprises people aged 65 to 74 and an estimated 1.985 million people are included in the group, data showed.
Frontline funeral workers are to be added to the second priority group and correctional facility workers to the fifth priority group, the center said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the respective authorities would be required to submit lists of names of eligible vaccine recipients in the seventh group, along with their plans for vaccination, to the center for approval.
With more than 2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine undergoing testing, the first distribution to local governments would be about 1.1 million doses, Chen said.
The distribution would be based on the number of unvaccinated personnel in the fifth priority group — residential long-term care facility workers and residents, and correctional facility workers, those who have already received a dose of the Moderna vaccine and 30 percent of people aged 65 to 74 in the city or county, he said.
Meanwhile, Chen said that all pregnant women would be allowed to choose between the AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccine, effective immediately.
The center on Monday said that pregnant women had been added to the sixth priority group for vaccination and would be eligible to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, while the Moderna vaccine would only be available to people in the top three priority groups.
However, specialists have urged the center to allow pregnant women receive an mRNA vaccine, such as the Moderna vaccine, as foreign studies have suggested they are safer.
The Kaohsiung City Government on Monday had announced that pregnant women in the top five priority groups would be allowed to choose between the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccine from today, and that all pregnant women would have that option from Monday next week.
Asked about the sudden change in policy, Chen said that the vaccination drive needs to be accelerated and as 140,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine have been offered to the top three priority groups, but only about 60,000 people have received a shot, it should be offered to more people as quickly as possible.
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