The Ministry of Health and Welfare has handled the COVID-19 pandemic well, but now that the situation has changed, it still only continues to tell the public to wash their hands carefully, wear a mask and register wherever it is required to enter a place. Frankly speaking, if a baseball team only knew how to play a defensive game, it would never win.
When the pandemic began, the Cabinet grasped the importance of masks and hand sanitizers, immediately organizing a “national mask team” to start up mass production. As a result, Taiwan was quickly able to resist the first wave.
A year later, there is still no news about another important supply — vaccines. No ministry is proposing the formation of a “national vaccine team,” and everyone is waiting for other countries to commit an “act of charity” and give Taiwan a few hundred thousand doses. It seems that Taiwan’s leaders have all bought into the myth that Taiwan cannot make a vaccine.
Taiwan has a solid economic foundation, a complete health insurance system, a mature medical care environment and even the ability to manufacture 3-nanometer microchips: Why do we think we are incapable of developing a vaccine? That really is an unreasonable self-imposed restriction. Where is our confidence?
Ministry of Health and Welfare officials are still looking at a vaccine as a mere drug, while many countries are treating it as a weapon. One example is US President Joe Biden’s announcement that 70 percent of Americans would be vaccinated by July 4.
In Taiwan, everyone is a bystander, and the government does not try to vaccinate everyone. Instead rumors about side effects are everywhere, frightening people who are preparing for the day when the situation spins out of control and a comprehensive lockdown is implemented.
If vaccine development were defined as a strategic resource important to national security, it could not be treated in the same way as the development of any standard product or drug.
The ministry should promptly establish a national vaccine team, allocate funds, work with organizations such as Taiwan’s big biomedical manufacturers, Academia Sinica, medical centers, academic institutions and the Food and Drug Administration to mobilize all resources to quickly initiate vaccine development and a plan to complete human trials in a few months.
If necessary, officials should participate in the human trials to encourage public participation. That is how Taiwan shows its determination to develop its own vaccine.
Taiwan must have its own national security strategy. Buying missiles to defend the nation is important, but at the moment, a vaccine might be even more so.
Joly Lin is vice chairman of Mennonite Christian Hospital.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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