People aged 12 or older with low immunity are eligible for COVID-19 booster shots at least 28 days after their second dose, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Those with congenitally or chronic condition-induced low immunity should get a booster dose to be adequately protected from COVID-19, Mackay Memorial Hospital Division of Pediatric Infection physician Chiu Nan-chang (邱南昌) told a CECC news conference.
Eligible are people living with cancer or HIV, those currently or over the past year undergoing immunotherapy, those currently or over the past six months undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy, those who have recently received organ or stem cell transplants, those with moderate to severe congenital immunity deficiency, those undergoing hemodialysis, those taking high-concentration immunosuppressive drugs, and those with a diagnosed low immunity, he said.
Photo courtesy of Central Epidemic Command Center
Chiu said there are two kinds of booster shots: add-on boosters that should only be administered five months after the second dose and boosters to increase baseline protection that can be administered within 28 days of the second dose.
Taiwan would administer half doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as add-on boosters to those who have received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as their first and second doses, he said, adding that boosters to increase baseline protection would be full Moderna doses.
While all common vaccine brands offer protection against the virus, AstraZeneca would not be used in the booster program, as it does not offer much added protection, Chiu said.
The CECC prioritizes the Medigen, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines, Chiu said.
Those who have had bad experiences with any of the booster brands could ask their doctors for AstraZeneca baseline protection boosters, he added.
Meanwhile, the CECC yesterday said that four previously reported COVID-19 cases on travelers involved the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Taiwan reported its first Omicron case on Dec. 11. The cases confirmed yesterday have brought Taiwan’s total to 16.
They are all imported cases who tested positive for COVID-19 either upon entering Taiwan or during quarantine, CECC data showed.
In related news, the Ministry of National Defense said that those entering service at military bases would from Saturday next week have to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19.
Those who are not fully vaccinated would have to provide a negative polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 test result from within one week of entering service and undergo rapid-screening tests every week, the ministry said.
The CECC yesterday said that four previously reported COVID-19 cases involved the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Taiwan reported its first Omicron case on Dec. 11. The cases confirmed yesterday have brought Taiwan’s total to 16.
They are all imported cases who tested positive for COVID-19 either upon entering Taiwan or during quarantine, CECC data showed.
Additional reporting by CNA
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching