In Taiwan, the central epidemic commander Chen Shih-chung publicly refused to accept the new crown vaccine made in China. He said Taiwan does not dare to introduce vaccines that are in use on the mainland, and that Taiwan is only marginally interested in vaccines that are not in use on the mainland. President Tsai Ing-wen, meanwhile, criticized China for blocking Taiwan’s international procurement of vaccines. There are reports that Taiwan’s New Crown vaccine stock is insufficient, Hon Hai Group and Nantou County Governor Lin Ming Qin respectively suggested the introduction of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceuticals agent of the Fubitai vaccine. Zhu Fenglian, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Mainland, then said at a press conference that he was willing to do his best to provide help and vaccines for Taiwan’s fight against the epidemic.
To counter China’s attempt at “vaccine unification war”, Taiwan’s central epidemic commander and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shizhong said categorically and publicly on Wednesday (26) that he would not use vaccines made in China.
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. It can be said that one is that they (mainland) are not playing, we have a little interest; they are playing, we dare not use.
President Tsai Ing-wen, who attended the meeting of the Central Committee of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as its chairman on the same day, said that Taiwan has been actively procuring several of the best vaccines internationally, but is constantly being suppressed from China.
Tsai Ing-wen said: the United States Moderna, as well as Germany’s BNT, we are actively approaching procurement, but also smoothly ordered to the United Kingdom and the United States of these two vaccines. For the German BNT, we were close to completing the contract with the original German manufacturer, but because of China’s intervention, the contract has been delayed until now.
Despite China’s pressure, Tsai said that nearly 30 million doses of the vaccine have been purchased, both from outsourcing and from Taiwan’s own research and development, and that these will arrive in monthly batches in the coming months.
She also called on the public to support and trust the central government to handle the situation.
I hope you will fully support the vaccine to be handled by the central government, which will also fully support the local epidemic prevention work and needs.
After the media reported that Hon Hai Group, which produces iPhones, intends to purchase the German Fubitai BNT vaccine distributed by Shanghai Fosun for its employees to administer, Nantou County Mayor Lin Ming Qin sent an official document to the central government on Wednesday morning, requesting approval to purchase 300,000 doses of vaccine from Fosun for 90% of the county’s population to administer.
The central epidemic commander Chen Shizhong believes that there may be a problem with the source of the Fubitai agent in Shanghai Fuxing.
Chen said, “It seems that the drug certificates for both BNT and Fubatai have not yet been issued and are not being administered in China. It is not known what problems are associated with the label itself, whether in terms of the drug certificate or the administration of the drug, which has not yet begun in China.
The mainland has offered to provide vaccines to Taiwan more than once, but it has been criticized as a “vaccine unification war”.
The Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhu Fenglian said again at a press conference on Wednesday that the relevant private institutions in Shanghai and Jiangsu have expressed their willingness to donate a batch of New Crown pneumonia vaccine to Taiwan, and they also hope that the relevant parties in Taiwan will remove the obstacles for this batch of vaccine to be sent to Taiwan as soon as possible.
Zhu Fenglian said: the face of Taiwan compatriots urgently need mainland vaccines, the face of the mainland side has expressed its willingness to do its best for the majority of Taiwan compatriots to fight the epidemic, to provide help for the sincere desire, true as long as a clear and unambiguous answer to the WHO-approved mainland vaccines, to be or not to be, the majority of Taiwan compatriots hope to use mainland vaccines as soon as possible, is to comply or ignore the desire.
In addition, Reuters quoted the director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Li Yingjie, as saying that Washington is not eager to send the new crown vaccine to Taiwan. He argued that the number of New Coronavirus infections in Taiwan remains relatively low, but is continuing bilateral consultations on the issue. Taiwan has been counting on securing 80 million doses of the vaccine from the United States.
Taiwan’s slow progress in obtaining the vaccine since the outbreak of NCCV last year has been cited by BAE as one of the reasons for the busting of the myth of Taiwan’s epidemic prevention. According to Bloomberg, at the current rate of vaccination in Taiwan, it will take six years to reach a herd immunity rate of 75 percent.
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