The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus will tomorrow table a resolution asking the government to urge the US to send more Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to give elderly Taiwanese their second shot, KMT Legislator Jessica Chen (陳玉珍) said yesterday.
While 1,054 high-level officials have already received two doses of the vaccine, there are more than 2 million elderly people in the nation who are still waiting for their second jabs, Chen said.
The WHO recommends a gap of six weeks between the first and second doses of the Moderna vaccine, but many Taiwanese have waited 10 to 12 weeks and have yet to receive their second jab because of the government’s inability to secure more doses, she said.
Photo: Wu Shu-wei, Taipei Times
“We have millions of people older than 65 who have yet to be fully vaccinated,” she said. “Of the 1,740 officials who have received a first dose of the Moderna vaccine, more than 60 percent — or 1,054 people — have received their second dose.”
Taiwan so far has only received 1.5 million doses of Moderna out of the 5.05 million doses it has purchased. Adding in the 1.5 million doses donated by the US and the Czech Republic, Taiwan has so far received 4.03 million doses of Moderna.
Central Epidemic Command Center statistics showed that as of Thursday last week, 3.43 million Taiwanese had received at least one shot of Moderna, and 330,000 had received two shots of the vaccine.
Chen criticized Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for not bringing up the vaccine issue during their recent visit to the US.
“The government should work with civic groups to press the US and Moderna on the issue. We need to quash this pandemic as soon as possible — its impact on the economy is too great,” she said.
Noting remarks by Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on July 17 that COVID-19 vaccines were arriving consistently and would be enough to meet demand, KMT Legislator Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said the government should look into the delay.
Given that Taiwan-US relations are at a historic high, it should not be a problem to press the US about receiving more Moderna doses soon, KMT Legislator Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭) said.
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