The US government next month is to require all non-US nationals to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before boarding a flight to the nation, but the Taiwanese vaccine manufactured by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) is not on Washington’s list of acceptable vaccines.
The new international air travel policy, which is to take effect on Nov. 8, requires all non-citizen, non-immigrant air travelers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before flying to the US.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they receive their second dose in a two-dose series or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine, the White House said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Vaccines accepted under the travel policy are those approved or authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and vaccines that have been approved for emergency use by the WHO.
They include the vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, which have been rolled out in Taiwan, as well as those produced by Johnson and Johnson, and China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm.
People who received two doses of different vaccine brands would also be approved for entry, as long as the two doses were administered at least 17 days apart and the two brands are both included on the FDA or WHO lists.
The vaccine developed by Taiwan’s Medigen is not on either list.
As of Monday, 614,535 people in Taiwan, or about 2.6 percent of the population, had received two doses of the Medigen vaccine, while another 138,119 people had received one dose, government data showed.
The vaccine was approved for emergency use by Taiwan’s FDA in mid-July without having conducted phase 3 clinical trials to determine its efficacy.
Instead, it was approved based on immunobridging, which uses the level of neutralizing antibodies generated by the vaccine in smaller numbers of trial participants to infer its efficacy in combating a virus. That process has not yet been accepted by US health authorities as a basis for approving a vaccine.
The new US travel policy is to replace the one established by the previous administration that banned non-US citizens from entering the nation if they were present in any of 33 “red list” nation in the 14 days prior to traveling.
Some travelers are exempt from the new policy, including children younger than 18 years old and certain COVID-19 vaccine trial participants.
Also exempted are those with medical contraindications to vaccines, those who need to travel for emergency or humanitarian reasons, and those who are traveling on non-tourist visas from nations with less than a 10 percent total vaccination rate.
The updated travel guidelines also include new protocols around testing.
Unvaccinated travelers, including US citizens, would need to provide a negative test within one day of traveling, while those who are vaccinated need to provide a negative test result within three days of traveling.
In response to media queries on whether the new policy would stop President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President William Lai (賴清德) from visiting the US as both received the Medigen vaccine, Central Epidemic Command Center spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said in Taipei yesterday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is negotiating with Washington in the hope that US visits by Taiwanese officials who have received the Medigen jab would not be affected.
Medigen in a statement yesterday expressed regret for the inconvenience it has caused people as its vaccine has not obtained certification in the US or at the WHO, adding that it is working hard to gain global certifications.
Meanwhile, the WHO yesteday announced the launch of the cosponsored Solidarity Trial Vaccines with the ministries of health of Colombia, Mali and the Philippines.
Medigen is among the candidate vaccines in the trial, the WHO said in a statement.
"The Solidarity Trial Vaccines aims to accelerate the evaluation of multiple promising candidate COVID-19 vaccines, contributing to the creation of a larger portfolio of vaccines needed to protect people from COVID-19 around the world," the statement said.
MILITARY BOOST: The procurement was planned after Washington recommended that Taiwan increase its stock of air defense missiles, a defense official said yesterday Taiwan is planning to order an additional four PAC-3 MSE systems and up to 500 missiles in response to an increasing number of missile sites on China’s east coast, a defense official said yesterday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the proposed order would be placed using the defense procurement special budget, adding that about NT$1 trillion (US$32,88 billion) has been allocated for the budget. The proposed acquisition would include launchers, missiles, and a lower tier air and missile defense radar system, they said The procurement was planned after the US military recommended that Taiwan increase
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
COGNITIVE WARFARE: Chinese fishing boats transmitting fake identification signals are meant to test Taiwan’s responses to different kinds of perceived incursions, a report said Chinese vessels are transmitting fake signals in Taiwan’s waters as a form of cognitive warfare, testing Taipei’s responses to various types of incursions, a report by the Institute for the Study of War said on Friday. Several Chinese fishing vessels transmitted fake automatic identification system (AIS) signals in Taiwan’s waters last month, with one mimicking a Russian warship and another impersonating a Chinese law enforcement vessel, the report said. Citing data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the report said that throughout August and last month, the Chinese fishing boat Minshiyu 06718 (閩獅漁06718) sailed through the Taiwan Strait while intermittently transmitting its own AIS
CHINESE INFILTRATION: Medical logistics is a lifeline during wartime and the reported CCP links of a major logistics company present a national security threat, an expert said The government would bolster its security check system to prevent China from infiltrating the nation’s medical cold chain, a national security official said yesterday. The official, who wished to stay anonymous, made the remarks after the Chinese-language magazine Mirror Media (鏡周刊) reported that Pharma Logistics (嘉里醫藥物流) is in charge of the medical logistics of about half of the nation’s major hospitals, including National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The company’s parent, Kerry TJ Logistics Co (嘉里大榮物流), is associated with the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the
RSS