The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must clarify whether it is pushing Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said yesterday.
KMT lawmakers’ proposal that the DPP administration secure 30 million to 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines approved by the international community by the end of August was turned down last week in the legislature, where the DPP has a majority.
The KMT should tell people if it aimed to force the government into purchasing Chinese vaccines and endorse Beijing’s “one China” principle, when other vaccines are in short supply, DPP caucus whip Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) told an online news conference.
Photo: CNA
The KMT keeps smearing the government’s efforts regarding foreign and locally developed vaccines, but has never questioned the risks posed by Chinese vaccines, DPP caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said.
The KMT demanded that domestically developed vaccines undergo phase 3 trials, but did not apply the same standards to the vaccines developed by Chinese firms Sinopharm and Sinovac, he said.
Before the WHO last month granted emergency use authorization for the Chinese vaccines, they had been administered in China, he added.
Lo called on the opposition party not to work with Beijing in its unification campaign, but to help Taiwan acquire more vaccines.
The KMT keeps finding fault with the vaccines acquired by the government, while sparing no effort in promoting the use of Chinese vaccines, DPP Legislator Phoenix Cheng (鄭運鵬) said, calling on voters to see past the KMT’s “trickery.”
Later yesterday, the KMT said it has never asked the government to purchase Chinese vaccines, and called on the DPP not to deflect attention from its vaccine acquisition problems.
The DPP administration cannot acquire any COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson, while it did not purchase enough doses of Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines, the KMT said, adding that only 3.7 percent of its ordered vaccines have arrived.
It is because of the Central Epidemic Command Center’s complacency and mistakes that many people are still not inoculated, it said.
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