The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday expanded registration for the national online COVID-19 vaccination booking system to include people aged 18 to 49.
From 9am yesterday, the booking system, 1922.gov.tw, started allowing people born in or before 2003 to register for vaccination, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), the CECC deputy head.
However, due to heavy online traffic after the announcement, the server crashed yesterday morning, before stabilizing at about midday.
Photo: CNA
The eligibility was expanded from people in the ninth priority group — those aged 18 to 64 who have a high-risk disease, a rare disease or catastrophic illness — and the 10th priority group of people aged 50 to 64 when the system was launched last week.
The deadline for people in those two priority groups to register for inoculation was 5pm on Monday.
Minister Without Portfolio Audrey Tang (唐鳳), who designed the system, said that approximately 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine are available, and about 1.1 million people in the ninth and 10th priority groups had selected it as their choice of vaccine by the deadline.
Photo courtesy of the CECC
All of those registered users received a text message yesterday morning informing them to book a vaccination appointment, which is to take place between Friday and Thursday next week, she said.
As of 1pm yesterday, more than 50,000 people had booked an appointment.
The deadline for registration for the next round of vaccination — again the AstraZeneca vaccine only — is at 5pm tomorrow, and all people aged 18 or older are eligible to register, Tang said.
As of 1pm yesterday, more than 1.67 million people aged 18 to 49 had registered for vaccination, she said.
If the number of people who selected the AstraZeneca vaccine exceeds the total number of doses available for the next round, eligible recipients would receive a text message for booking an appointment based on their age in descending order, she said.
The CECC said that as of 5pm yesterday, a total of 4,852,553 people had registered for the next round of vaccination.
It added that 63,310 people (1.3 percent) chose only the AstraZeneca vaccine, while 3,098,106 people (63.84 percent) chose only the Moderna vaccine, and 1,691,137 people (34.85 percent) selected both vaccines.
Meanwhile, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi yesterday said Tokyo would donate a third batch of vaccines — 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine — to Taiwan tomorrow.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, yesterday confirmed that the vaccines are expected to arrive in Taiwan tomorrow, thanking the Japanese government for donating three batches of vaccines.
CECC data showed that 3,821,539 doses of vaccine had been administered as of 10am yesterday, with 15.93 percent of the population having received at least one dose.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS