The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said it would release another 10,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for self-pay vaccinations.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that 7,165 people had received a self-pay vaccine shot as of Monday.
Self-pay vaccinations were made available on Wednesday last week for people who are planning to travel abroad for business, work, study or medical treatment, and 10,000 doses were initially released.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Chuang said those doses are likely to be used up in a couple of days, while another 7,909 people have made appointments with hospitals to get vaccinated between yesterday and Saturday.
Following Chuang’s remarks, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, announced that the center would release another 10,000 doses of the vaccine for self-pay vaccinations.
Based on the number of government-funded shots administered on Monday, it appears that a spate of infections among China Airlines pilots has not boosted people’s willingness to get vaccinated, so there are sufficient doses to be released for self-pay shots, Chen said.
The center would also discuss whether to increase the number of locations where self-pay shots are administered.
Chuang said that 2,509 people received a vaccine shot on Monday, adding to a total of 45,387 people who have received the first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Taiwan.
Separately yesterday, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that getting vaccinated is still the best solution, given the number of confirmed cases worldwide continue to increase by more than 800,000 per day.
“However, until today, we have no information on when the vaccines will arrive and the related time schedule,” Ko said.
Different vaccines need to be stored at different temperatures, so local governments need time to prepare in advance, because it would be impossible to be ready if the central government suddenly announced a new policy, he added.
More than 1 billion people have been vaccinated globally, but Taiwan is still taking a defensive approach by practicing preventive measures and not implementing a universal vaccination plan, Ko said, adding that he is concerned that an outbreak could still occur in the long term if the nation only uses preventive measures.
Asked about Ko’s remarks, Chen said the center only knows how many doses of vaccines Taiwan has purchased, but it does not know the import schedule.
Giving an example, he said the COVAX global distribution platform had originally informed the CECC that it would start sending vaccines from late February, but later postponed the schedule and sent the first batch this month. The center remains in touch with the platform and is awaiting to find out when the next batch would arrive.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led