Taiwan should abandon its “COVID zero” strategy and instead focus on COVID-19 vaccines and improving clinical outcomes, a Taiwanese medical expert said yesterday, citing Singapore’s experience in battling the pandemic.
Huang Yun-ru (黃韻如), a professor of medicine at National Taiwan University who lives in Singapore, made the remarks in an online news conference organized by the National Taiwan University Hospital.
As vaccines are effective in preventing deaths, severe symptoms and hospitalizations, it is possible to live with COVID-19 if a large percentage of the population is fully vaccinated, she said.
Photo: CNA
Singapore has vaccinated 80 percent of its people against COVID-19, the highest vaccination rate in the world, Huang said, adding that Taiwan’s top priority should be raising its inoculation rate.
An indefinite border closure cannot be sustained in Singapore, which depends on imports for 90 percent of its food, and needs Changi Airport to stay open so that the city-state can remain a regional hub, she said.
Singapore attained such a high vaccination rate because its government created a precisely calculated vaccine acquisition program in April last year and began distributing vaccines in December, Huang said.
Although people older than 70 were given top priority for COVID-19 vaccination, the age group had the lowest inoculation rate in the city-state, she said, adding for example that 90 percent of Singaporean youths were fully vaccinated, despite their lower priority.
Singapore launched a campaign to persuade elderly vaccine holdouts following the outbreak of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which caused deaths and hospitalizations overwhelmingly in that demographic, Huang said.
The measures included sending medical volunteers to communities to inoculate people and carry out public awareness campaigns, which appeared to have increased vaccination rates among elderly people over the past two months, she said.
The city-state uses the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for its publicly subsidized vaccination program, but other vaccines are available for self-paid vaccination for people who do not trust messenger RNA-based vaccines, she said.
Last month, Singapore unveiled an App-based vaccine passport for visiting public places, Huang said.
Taiwan has not adopted similar measures due to its low vaccination rate and legal concerns over digital privacy, she said.
Digital vaccine passports do not necessarily infringe of human rights and Singapore has shown that they are a useful incentive for people to get vaccinated, she added.
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