Nearly half of the public — 49.9 percent — are worried that domestically developed COVID-19 vaccines would not be able to attain international certification, a survey released yesterday by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) showed.
The survey found that 40.7 percent said they were not worried that would be the case, while 9.4 percent gave no response.
The survey also asked respondents to select the top three brands of COVID-19 vaccine they would most like to receive.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Nationalist Party via CNA
The most popular option was the Moderna vaccine with 493 votes, followed by the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine with 489 votes, the AstraZeneca vaccine with 321 votes, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with 315 votes, the results showed.
The domestic vaccine being developed by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp was fifth with 222 votes, the survey showed.
Sixty-six percent of respondents agreed that “if the government cannot obtain foreign vaccines quickly, it should allow local governments or private companies to obtain vaccines,” while 27.9 percent disagreed and 6.2 percent gave no response, the survey showed.
It showed that 65.1 percent of respondents agreed that the government should promote universal screening for COVID-19 to prevent it from continuing to spread in communities, while 26.1 percent disagreed and 8.8 percent gave no response.
The government delaying adopting universal screening has led to many unreported cases of infection, the KMT said.
Although President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has been pushing for domestic COVID-19 vaccines, there is a risk that they would not be able to obtain international certification, it said.
The government has “clearly been unfair” in its allocation of vaccines, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) said at the online news conference.
With a bigger population and more confirmed cases of COVID-19, Taichung should not receive fewer vaccine doses than Kaohsiung, she said, calling for an explanation from the Central Epidemic Command Center.
The center would not do a good job of preventing the spread of the virus if it distinguishes between Democratic Progressive Party-led and KMT-led municipalities and counties when distributing vaccines, she said.
The survey was carried out by Taiwan Real Survey Co from Monday to Wednesday last week, the KMT said.
It was based on the responses of 1,080 Taiwanese aged 20 or older, and had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points, it said.
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