The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday proposed an alternative set of COVID-19 response measures, centered around importing 30 million vaccines by the end of August and offering compensation for lives lost.
By the end of this month, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing capacity should reach 100,000 per day, while anyone should be able to take a rapid test free of charge, KMT caucus whip Alex Fai (費鴻泰) and caucus secretary-?general Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) told an online news conference held at the Legislative Yuan.
This should be followed by the importation of at least 30 million internationally recognized vaccines by the end of August, distributed according to an adjusted priority list, they said.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Nationalist Party
As for local vaccines, records of the emergency use authorization process should be made public and their price reviewed, they said.
International recognition must also be obtained for any domestic vaccines, they added.
To ease people’s financial burden, the caucus also proposes giving each citizen NT$10,000 (US$362) in cash, suspending electricity price hikes and reducing income taxes, they said, adding that compensation should be offered for lives lost due to COVID-19.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Nationalist Party
Calling Taiwan “worse than Vietnam” and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) “worse than Jia Yong-jie (賈永婕),” an entertainer who recently helped purchase hundreds of high-flow nasal cannula machines, Fai said that Jia’s donations and Vietnam’s success have laid bare the government’s supposed “advance planning.”
Vietnam, like Taiwan, saw an outbreak begin in the past two months and has been slow in obtaining vaccines, Cheng said.
Yet Vietnam has fewer cases, even with 98 million people, and a fatality rate of 0.6 percent, a fraction of Taiwan’s 3.5 percent, she said.
This is despite Taiwan having a GDP eight times the size of Vietnam’s and a far better-equipped medical system, she added.
Vietnam is also far ahead in vaccine procurement, having received 5.8 million doses to Taiwan’s 2.11 million, in addition to discussing the right to manufacture US mRNA vaccines, she said, adding that by contrast, Taiwan has not been buying vaccines or negotiating manufacturing rights, preferring instead to wait for a domestic option.
Cheng accused the Food and Drug Administration of cooperating with Medigen Vaccine Biologics to approve its vaccine, adding that it is to be sold at the highest international price, even without having international approval.
“If the government wants to give money to Medigen, that is one thing, but it cannot force Taiwanese to have only domestic vaccines to choose from,” she added.
Separately in an online news conference held at KMT headquarters in Taipei, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that the 452 Taiwanese lives lost to the virus as of the time of the news conference were “not a cold statistic.”
Of the 440 deaths recorded since last month, 274, or about 62 percent, either occurred within one week of diagnosis of COVID-19 or were people who were confirmed to have COVID-19 after death, he said.
“What do these 400-plus lives mean to the government?” Chiang asked, as he accused the government of failing its responsibility to take care of the public and letting people “live in fear and anxiety.”
The KMT caucus is to propose providing NT$300,000 in “consolation money” and NT$2.5 million in compensation for each death from COVID-19, he said.
People confirmed to have the disease should receive NT$50,000 in “consolation money” and NT$100,000 in compensation from the government, he added.
The KMT would support former minister of health and welfare Yaung Chih-liang’s (楊志良) efforts to help family members of those who have died from COVID-19 seek further state compensation, Chiang said.
The caucus proposes that the government offer compensation and “consolation money” on the grounds that the deaths from COVID-19 have been significant, were not due to people’s actions and could be attributed to the government’s policy decisions, KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) said.
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