Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are to be offered for first and second doses, whether uniformly or as mixed vaccinations, in the 15th round of national COVID-19 inoculations, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, adding that the AstraZeneca vaccine is also to be offered as the second dose.
The round begins on Thursday and ends on Dec. 1, it added.
Eligible recipients are those who registered their vaccine preference in the national online COVID-19 vaccination booking system before 4pm on Thursday last week, and meet the requirements for the three types of vaccines, the CECC said.
Photo courtesy of the CECC
Eligible recipients for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are people who were born on or before Nov. 25, 2009, for the first dose, and born on or before Dec. 31, 2003, and have received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on or before Oct. 28 for the second dose, the CECC said.
For the Moderna vaccine, people who were born on or before Dec. 31, 2003, can receive the first dose, and people who were born on or before Dec. 31, 2003, and have received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine on or before Oct. 28, can receive the second dose, it said.
People who were born on or before Nov. 25, 2003, and have received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on or before Sept. 30 are eligible for a second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, it said.
People who were born on or before Nov. 25, 2003, and have received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on or before Sept. 30 can choose either the Moderna vaccine or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as their second dose if they registered for the mixed vaccine regimen, it said.
Bookings for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine open at 10am on Tuesday, while bookings for the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Moderna vaccine start at 2pm on Tuesday; all end at 12pm on Wednesday, it said.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that 294,053 COVID-19 vaccines were administered on Friday, and the nation’s first-dose vaccination rate has reached 76.9 percent, while the full vaccination rate is at 46.8 percent.
Regarding a questions about whether people should receive a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as a booster shot, Chuang said that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is to call a meeting later this month to discuss the plans, including the recommended vaccines for people who received two doses of the same vaccine or mixed vaccines, as well as the priority groups for vaccination.
Chuang also addressed a public query over an interim report released by National Taiwan University Hospital on Friday, which suggested that receiving two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine can only provide about 10 to 20 percent of protection against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, while the AstraZeneca-Moderna combination provided nearly 100 percent protection.
Chuang said that the hospital’s study was an assay conducted in a laboratory to measure neutralizing antibody titers in the blood samples of participants vaccinated against the Delta variant.
However, a Swedish study suggested that people who are fully vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine had about 50 percent protection against the Delta variant, and people who received a mixed vaccine regimen had about 68 percent protection, he said.
Chuang said that the two studies were conducted differently, and the center’s specialists would reference studies conducted in the “real world” rather than the laboratory to compare the difference between different vaccination regimens.
Meanwhile, Taiwan reported four imported cases yesterday: two men and two women who arrived from Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Chuang said that three had vaccine breakthrough infections, of which two were fully vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine, and one with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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