People aged 18 or older who received their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at least three months (84 days) ago are eligible to book an appointment for a booster dose using the national COVID-19 vaccination booking system from 10am today.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) spokesman, said that appointment bookings start at 10am today and end at 4pm tomorrow, and the vaccination appointments would be from Feb. 7 to 13.
People who were born on or before Feb. 13, 2004, who received their second dose of a vaccine on or before Nov. 21 last year are eligible to book an appointment on the 1922.gov.tw Web site, Chuang said.
Photo: CNA
Bookings are to be opened in three phases today, starting at 10am for eligible recipients who are 65 or older, at midday for eligible recipients aged 50 to 64, and at 2pm for people aged 18 to 49, he said.
Eligible recipients who have just met the eligibility criteria, such as those who received their second dose on Nov. 21 last year, can only choose Feb. 13 for their booster dose, while those who received their second dose on Nov. 20 last year can only choose Feb. 12 or 13, to meet the requirement that doses are at least 84 days apart.
People who still need to receive a first or second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine can book an appointment with designated healthcare facilities, which can be found on the cdc.gov.tw Web site, or with a visit to a walk-in vaccination site run by a local government, the CECC said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that 328,357 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Monday, bringing the nation’s first-dose vaccination rate to 81.26 percent, full vaccination rate to 73.8 percent and booster dose rate to 17.97 percent.
He also said that a government-purchased shipment of 1,512,100 doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived yesterday.
The vaccines in the shipment have an expiration date of April 23, he said.
The government on July 22 last year signed a contract with Moderna to purchase 35 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, with 20 million doses expected to arrive this year, CECC data showed.
The latest batch of Moderna vaccines has to go through lot-release testing, which usually takes about seven days, before being allocated to local governments, so it would take about 10 days before they can be administered, Chen said.
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