Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) yesterday apologized for the temporary suspension of government-funded influenza vaccines for people aged 50 to 64, and said that not all eligible people need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
Chen said that the sudden announcement of the suspension on Friday inconvenienced people who had made an appointment to receive a flu shot, and created work for healthcare practitioners and borough officials.
“The main purpose of administering the government-funded vaccines is to achieve heard immunity, which can be reached with a vaccination coverage rate of about 25 percent,” he said, adding that the 7.48 million government-funded and pay-out-of-pocket vaccines procured this year are enough to cover 31.5 percent of the population.
Photo: CNA
As not all people need to be vaccinated, people at heightened risk of developing complications from the flu or spreading the disease should be prioritized, Chen said.
Healthcare practitioners and students have a higher risk of contracting and spreading the flu, while people aged 65 or older and children aged six months to five years have a higher risk of developing serious complications from it, he said.
People aged 50 to 64 who do not have underlying health conditions are not considered to be at high risk, but their vaccination rate this year has been much higher than last year — so far more than 770,000 people have received a flu shot, compared with about 530,000 in the same period last year, Chen said.
The ministry decided to suspend the group’s eligibility to ensure that higher-risk groups can meet the government’s targeted vaccination rates, he said.
The flu vaccination rate has soared in the first 12 days since the program began on Oct. 5, with more than 3.18 million doses — 52.8 percent of the total vaccines — having been administered as of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said.
The target coverage rate for people aged 65 or older, children aged six months to five years and healthcare workers is 52.5 percent, 55.5 percent and 75 percent respectively, while their administration rate so far has been 35.6 percent, 24.3 percent and 54.7 percent respectively, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said.
In comparison, the target coverage rate for people aged 50 to 64 is 18.7 percent, while the administration rate has reached 14.7 percent, which is much closer to the target, he said.
The first line of defense against infectious diseases is maintaining good personal hygiene, followed by vaccinations and medical treatment, he said, adding that herd immunity would be even more effective if people continue to practice good personal hygiene, such as wearing a mask.
‘HARD DECISION’: The international medical society now only refers to Taiwanese groups as from ‘Chinese Taipei,’ after the WHO asked that it make the change Two Taiwanese medical groups have been forced to change the word “Taiwan” in their membership names for the International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists (ISRRT) to “Chinese Taipei,” due to a request by the WHO. The two groups are the Taiwan Society of Radiological Technologists (TWSRT) and the Taiwan Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (TAMRT). On Dec. 23 last year, the TAMRT posted on Facebook screenshots of a letter it received from the ISRRT, informing it that the two groups’ membership names would be changed from “Taiwan - TWSRT” and “Taiwan - TAMRT” to “Chinese Taipei - TWSRT” and “Chinese Taipei
‘NO MORE’: Pompeo’s decision was not rushed before the change of administration, but was the result of a long review of Taiwan-US ties, a US assistant secretary said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday announced that the US Department of State is voiding long-standing restrictions on how US diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, just a little over a week before US president-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Pompeo instructed executive branch agencies to consider “all ‘contact guidelines’ regarding relations with Taiwan ... to be null and void.” “For several decades the State Department has created complex internal restrictions to regulate our diplomats, service members, and other officials’ interactions with their Taiwanese counterparts,” Pompeo said in a statement. “The United States government took these actions
CONTACTS TRACED: The doctor and his nurse girlfriend, who also tested positive, have only mild symptoms, but their cases have led to hundreds of people being tested The first case of a doctor contracting COVID-19 after treating an infected patient was one of two locally transmitted cases and two imported cases reported by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday. The second local case, No. 839, is the doctor’s girlfriend, a nurse who works at the same hospital. Case No. 838, a man in his 30s, is a doctor in a hospital in northern Taiwan that has been treating COVID-19 cases, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. He was in a negative-pressure isolation ward where one of the confirmed patients was staying
DEPARTURE CEREMONY: Guam’s governor hailed the US’ move to end restrictions on contacts with Taiwanese officials, saying it would help the territory build ties with Taipei A humanitarian charter flight, carrying dozens of people who had either been stranded on Guam and Saipan amid border closures or were in need of medical treatment, arrived in Taiwan at 5:25pm yesterday. The flight, operated by China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 47 passengers and 13 crew aboard. Five of the passengers had applied to local hospitals for treatment of tumors, heart arrhythmia or other conditions, and were approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, while four more are family members, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the spokesman