Doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 for children and adolescents were delivered to local governments yesterday, and vaccinations are to start today in some cities and counties, the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that 403,200 doses of the vaccines for children aged five to 11 as their first shot, and for adolescents aged 12 to 17 as their booster shot, had been delivered.
The schedules for vaccinations at hospitals and schools differ in each city or county, based on local health departments’ arrangements, he said.
Photo courtesy of Mennonite Christian Hospital
About 1.62 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adults and adolescents were also being delivered to local governments, 343,980 doses on Friday last week and another 515,970 today, he added.
Another 268,800 doses for children are to be delivered on Friday, Chen said.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents and adults contains 30 micrograms of mRNA, the active ingredient, per dose, while its vaccine for children contains 10 micrograms of mRNA per dose.
The formula for calculating the demand for children’s vaccines in each city and county is 70 percent of the population in the age group minus 80 percent of the eligible recipients who had agreed to receive the Moderna vaccine in a survey and the number of children who had recently been diagnosed with COVID-19, Chen said.
Additional doses would be offered to cities or counties where the prevalence of COVID-19 infection is 4,000 per 100,000 people or higher, he said.
“Parents do not have to worry, as we have sufficient doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children,” Chen said, adding that they can get vaccinated at healthcare facilities or at school.
Some schools might delay administering vaccines and while the center respects their decision, it would urge schools not to delay vaccinations for too long, he said.
In related news, the Taipei City Government’s online COVID-19 vaccination booking system opened at 9am yesterday for people to book vaccine appointments from Monday next week to June 5, and the 7,232 available shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children were filled within 15 minutes.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said that another 12,310 shots of the vaccine for children would be available at special outpatient services at 15 designated hospitals during the same period.
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