The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that local governments must offer COVID-19 vaccination according to the center’s priority list, or they could face receiving reduced numbers of vaccines in future distributions.
The center released a COVID-19 vaccine priority list with 10 groups in late February, before vaccinations began in late March and by the middle of last month, people in the first to eighth groups and family members living with people in the top three groups were eligible for government-funded vaccines.
However, after a local outbreak occurred in the middle of last month, the center limited the number of eligible recipients to people in the top three groups — frontline health workers, disease prevention officials and those with a high risk of exposure to infected individuals — in Taipei and New Taipei City, and only people in the top group elsewhere in the nation.
Photo courtesy of Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, last week said that it was considering readjusting the priority list, including moving people aged 75 and older, and residents and workers at long-term care centers to higher priority groups.
The list was due to be finalized at an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting yesterday afternoon.
Asked about mayors announcing that they would allow certain groups of people to get vaccinated first, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), who is deputy head of the center, said that the center stressed in a meeting with local government officials yesterday morning that the vaccination program must follow the center’s priority list.
He said people of many occupations have proposed to the center that they be moved to higher priority groups, but the priority list aims to create an effective line of defense against the coronavirus.
The center has asked the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to submit the eligible personnel to be included in the seventh group of essential workers for maintaining social operations, he said.
Separately yesterday, it was reported that former Yunlin County commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味), who was granted parole on Monday last week, had been vaccinated, sparking public outrage.
Yunlin County Commissioner Chang Li-shan (張麗善), Chang Jung-wei’s younger sister, yesterday said that as she is the local disease prevention commander — the second group — and she lives “a yard apart from her brother,” he was vaccinated “according to the rules” because he is “a family member living with a person in the top three groups.”
Asked to comment on the report, Chen Tsung-yen said that when a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine was distributed to the county on May 26, the eligibility of family members living with people in the top three groups had been suspended.
Asked how the center would prevent people with “special privilege” from jumping the line and getting vaccinated first, Chen Tsung-yen said that if it is confirmed that people who are not in the eligible groups have been vaccinated, the center would reduce the number of vaccines distributed to that city or county.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS