The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Friday said people can add the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT) vaccine to their preferences on the government-run registration platform without sacrificing their spot on the waiting list for the vaccines they want.
Taiwan has struggled to get enough vaccines to satisfy demand. As of Thursday, just over 40 percent of the population had gotten a first shot and under 4 percent were fully vaccinated.
To create an orderly waiting list, people who want a vaccine are required to sign up on the platform and pick the brand or brands of vaccines they are willing to accept.
Once vaccines become available, they are offered to people on the platform in the order in which they signed up and other criteria set by the CECC.
On Friday, the CECC confirmed that a batch of 1.95 million BNT vaccine doses will be shipped to Taiwan as early as the end of August, and it said people could go to the platform and register their willingness to get a BNT jab starting at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The new option led to some concerns among people who have already registered on the platform that if they added the BNT vaccine to their list of preferences, their position on the waiting list for other vaccine brands would be sacrificed.
In response, CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (???) told CNA if people still waiting for their first shot simply add BNT to their preferred vaccines, they would not lose their place on the waiting list for any of the vaccines they chose.
But Chuang urged people not to cancel previous brands they signed up for, whether the AstraZeneca vaccine, Moderna, or the local Medigen brand, when adding the BNT option.
Any cancellation will lead to their spot in the waiting order for those brands to be adjusted, he said, noting that those who registered and indicated their willingness to be vaccinated before July 19 will remain at the top of the waiting list.
The expected BNT shots are the first delivery of 15 million BNT doses being purchased and donated by three private units — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Hon Hai Precision Co.’s YongLin Charity and Education Foundation, and the Tzu Chi Foundation.
To date, Taiwan has obtained more than 11 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including 6.64 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 4 million doses of the Moderna vaccine from abroad, as well as 860,000 doses of the locally developed Medigen vaccine.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel