People who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 should do so as soon as possible, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said yesterday.
Despite worldwide jitters over the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 and the nation expecting many Taiwanese returning for the Lunar New Year holiday, there are no plans to tighten border controls, he said.
The Omicron variant, which was first reported in southern Africa and is deemed a “variant of concern” by the WHO, has been detected in several countries.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Chen made the remark on the sidelines of a forum on traditional Chinese medicine held by the Consumers’ Foundation in Taipei.
Case numbers are increasing on four continents, most significantly in Europe, while the new variant adds to worries over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Taiwanese should not worry too much, he said.
The CECC is watching reports on the Omicron variant closely, especially to see if it would render vaccines less effective and reinfects people who have recovered from the virus, he said.
There are no direct flights to Taiwan from the six southern African countries most affected by the new variant, he said, adding that quarantine and testing requirements for travelers from there have been tightened.
Chen told the forum that Taiwan’s COVID-19 situation is under control, with no new domestic cases reported in 23 days.
However, this has led to fewer people getting vaccinated in the past few weeks, he added.
In case of an infection, vaccinated people are 10 times less likely to develop severe symptoms or die, he said, urging people who only had their first dose to get their second, instead of waiting for a domestic outbreak to occur.
Taiwan’s first-dose vaccination rate has reached 77.46 percent and the full vaccination rate has reached 51.75 percent, he said.
However, the full vaccination rate of people aged 75 or older remains at only 65.1 percent, and that of people in the fifth priority group — long-term care facility residents and workers, and people on dialysis — is at 63.4 percent, he said, urging them to get vaccinated.
Asked about plans for booster shots and whether minors aged 12 to 17 who had their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should receive a second dose, Chen said that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices would discuss those issues later in the day.
Separately, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, yesterday said the committee meeting has reached a consensus on the issues and has forwarded its policy suggestion to the CECC.
Chen would need to approve the suggestions, which would be announced after he has reviewed them, as early as today, Chuang said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan yesterday reported 10 imported cases of COVID-19 — seven male and three female, aged between 10 and 40, who arrived from Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and the US, Chuang said
Three of them were vaccine breakthrough infections, all involving the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, he said.
Two cases had a cycle threshold value of 16, indicating a higher viral load, and one case had a value of 26, while the remaining seven cases had values of more than 30, he added.
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