Coronavirus Vaccine in Taiwan - April 2021

Nahhh. there are others who agree with you.
No one is ever disputing the GREAT GREAT GREAT job Taiwan has done as preventing any COVID-19 pandemic on the island. That is a given.
Again, GREAT GREAT GREAT job for those who think i’m berating Chen at CDC.
Again, GREAT GREAT GREAT job.
However, the only plan out of this bubble is by vaccine and the government chose AZ.
I wrote about this earlier:

and this:

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I think it goes without saying that Taiwan has only two choices:

  • bend over and take whatever vaccine the CCP has to offer
  • go through a middleman to access vaccines on the global market, because absolutely nobody will sell direct for fear of offending the feelings of the Chinese people.

The middleman is taking a cut in proportion to the risk he/she/it is taking. The costs of covering one’s ass against China’s state security apparatus must be considerable, and I imagine the identity of that middleman has been carefully obfuscated.

Reminds me of a story about the UK attempting to buy armaments (might have been aircraft?) from the US during WW2. Roosevelt told Churchill that any sales would be politically impossible, but perhaps someone might accidentally leave some kit on the Canadian border, how careless, tut tut. I’m guessing something similar is going on with Taiwan’s vaccine supply.

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Hmmm.
And the gov’ment unfortunately paid, uhhh, picked the wrong horse to ride to the rescue.

I imagine they had very little choice in the matter.

As I keep saying, pick up the phone and talk to the Moderna guys again. J&J should also be on their speed dial.

It seems however that the plan is to wait for a Taiwan developed moonshot to occur. They do seem puzzlingly confident about it…

Guy

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I think that the news reports of the two AZ shipments that have arrived in Taiwan stated that they originated from a facility in (South) Korea.

(and OT but it seems that the AZ shipments to Australia have originated from the UK - though most will be manufactured in Australia now - so AZ ship from many sites it seems)

On the plus side, by dealing with the Korean manufacturer of AZ vaccines, at least we’re not mixed up with the ongoing debacle involving the Serum Institute in India, where vaccine nationalism has messed up COVAX distribution plans…

Guy

PS If forumosans are interested, a great piece from the Guardian (also printed in the Taipei Times) that addresses this debacle can be found here: The poorest countries are at India’s mercy for vaccines - Taipei Times .

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Quite frankly I cannot blame India for this really. Every government is first responsible for its own citizens. And this is also what the U.S. and the UK are largely doing.
However, when the EU or India also want to at least somewhat move in this direction, then people start complaining…

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In addition to being critical of rich countries such as Canada, the Guardian piece linked above criticizes India, which (it asserts) provided little to no funding or support for the vaccine initiative, and only swooped in after it had failed politically to manage the situation. No one looks good in this story…

Guy

The WHO have been complaining about selfish vaccine distribution.

At the end of the day it was inevitable.

There has never really been a consistent message about how best to achieve vaccinated global herd immunity. My view was we should only vaccinate the vulnerable, which could have allowed vaccines to be distributed more equitably, but that was never adopted.

Net result: poorer people have to wait.

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Particularly since the YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE message was being broadcast loud and clear, 24-7. Inevitably, people who are terrified out of their wits are going to be scrambling over each other to get to the vaccine first. If governments have given people more realistic information about their risk, they might now be more inclined to say “you first”.

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Doesn’t seem to remotely resemble reality.

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Mr Finley, I am unsure what your source(s) of information may be to come up with such observations. But they do often seem to be from a different world than the one I am familiar with.

Guy

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You’ve got to be kidding me.

The YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE message has been adopted with relish by several members of Forumosa. Are you now going to tell me that you’ve been aware all along that it’s not a particularly dangerous disease and there’s no need for anybody to panic?

Whether you think the official information is accurate or not, members of the public really are terrified by coronavirus; a significant fraction are developing honest-to-goodness neuroses. Unsurprisingly.

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The messaging I’ve heard is: watch out, this is tricky, it requires us to do specific things (wear masks, keep social distance, etc etc) to try to keep us all safe. Plus: quarantine for new arrivals is not optional. :grin:

But who know? My views on these matters may have been skewed by living in Taiwan.

And btw, I still wish to be vaccinated, even without being overwhelmed by the alarming messaging you mentioned.

Guy

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Quite possibly, yes. Elsewhere has been a different story. A very different story. Taiwan is a little island of relative sanity in a world of headless chickens.

Do you not recall those queues of Americans waiting in their cars overnight to get the vaccine first?

The message was how do we open up our economy without vaccinating everybody? Otherwise new variants will mutate. That was the message and the end result is poor, predominantly brown people won’t get vaccinated for a while.

In Taiwan? Where are your sources?

Guy

Fair enough. Wrong thread.

No worries. I cross the lines of different threads too.

Hope you’re all well.

Guy