Taichung, Kaohsiung and Chiayi County are to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine administration method invented in a town in Japan to make the inoculation process easier for elderly people, the local governments said.
Under the method, dubbed the “Umi-machi style,” seniors who go to get their jabs at designated venues remain seated while a team of medical staff move from one person to another to administer their shots.
Umi, a town in Fukuoka Prefecture, conceived of the idea by observing Toyota’s vehicle assembly lines, which are renowned for being efficient.
Photo: Su Chin-feng, Taipei Times
Taichung, which has about 36,000 people older than 85, would try to vaccinate 120 people an hour over a three-day period beginning today.
Vaccines would be offered at 64 venues across the city, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said.
There was no indication how big each group would be or how long the vaccine recipients would have to sit, but officials said the method makes getting vaccinated much easier for people who have trouble moving around.
Photo courtesy of the Chiayi County Government via CNA
Kaohsiung plans to administer the shots to its 31,000 residents aged 87 and older, also over a three-day period from today.
The city said that it has already sent out notifications for people to arrive at their designated venues to be vaccinated.
Senior residents who have not received the notification, who need help with transportation because of physical disabilities or whose household registration is not in Kaohsiung, should contact their local community office for assistance, it said.
In Chiayi, which began administering COVID-19 vaccines to local medical staff and quarantine workers yesterday, said that jabs would be administered to people over the age of 85 from today through Thursday.
Vaccination sites would be set up at elementary and secondary schools across the county, it said.
Health authorities would make transportation arrangements for senior residents with disabilities, or have medical personnel go to their homes to vaccinate them, it said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods