The government expects soon to sign a deal for additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
“We are discussing a new contract” to obtain more doses of the vaccine and it is “likely to be finalized soon,” Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), told a news briefing, when asked how many doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are left.
Concern has been raised over supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine ahead of a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Thursday next week to discuss whether to authorize booster shots for the 12-17 age group and to start COVID-19 vaccinations for five to 11 year olds.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
Only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for the 12-17 age group in Taiwan.
Chen said there were still 230,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
As of Tuesday, the nation’s first, second and booster dose vaccination rates had reached 83.23 percent, 77.73 percent and 47.16 percent respectively, he added.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, the CECC yesterday reported three local cases of COVID-19 and 87 imported cases.
One local case is a woman in her 70s who sought treatment due to increased blood sugar levels and reported experiencing an altered state of consciousness.
The woman tested positive and was hospitalized.
She had high cycle threshold values of 39 and 35 in two tests, and also tested positive for antibodies against the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2, indicating a previous infection, Chen said.
Contact tracing showed that the woman had visited a bank in Taoyuan, where many workers had tested positive in January, with the infections traced to an airport cluster, he said.
The two other cases are family members of infected elementary-school students, linked to a previous preschool cluster in Taoyuan, he said, adding that they tested positive upon ending isolation.
In related news, Chen earlier yesterday morning had a heated exchange with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
KMT lawmakers protested at the meeting to review a policy on removing the ban on imports of food from five Japanese prefectures, with Cheng shouting at Chen that “800 people had already died from the [COVID-19] pandemic and you did not take responsibility” and that he “will not be held to account if more people die from consuming contaminated food.”
Speaking to reporters later yesterday, Chen said that linking Japanese food imports and COVID-19 deaths was going too far.
Healthcare workers have worked hard and done their best to save COVID-19 patients from dying, he said, adding that Taiwan’s death rate is lower than in many countries.
The COVID-19 death rate in Taiwan is 36 per 1 million people, compared with about 200 deaths per 1 million in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, and 616 deaths per 1 million in Hong Kong, he said.
The mortality rate in many developed nations is more than 10 times that of Taiwan’s, he added.
It is regrettable that about 800 people died of COVID-19 in Taiwan, but everyone had tried their best to prevent it, he added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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