Just say not the first time that has been done for multiple stocks during the last 30 years.
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I’ve been wondering if the absence of any batch numbers on the yellow vaccination cards will cause problems for future travel out of Taiwan.
There has recently been a(nother) fuss in the news between UK and EU, this time about whether AstraZeneca vaccines from Indian factories will be accepted as authorised (because the EU currently only recognises vaccines made in EU, UK or US). Apparently the batch numbers on vaccination records are being used to find out whether the jab someone has received is approved, and because some 5 million of the doses given in the UK came from India, they are coming up as invalid when people try to travel to the EU.
On my Taiwanese vaccination card, it just says Product Name: “AZ” (not even the full name) as well as a date stamp, the name of the doctor and a hospital stamp. No batch number or other reference.
If other countries are going to be strict on using batch numbers to check vaccine validity, then I predict there will be a big problem coming up, where vaccinated people travelling from Taiwan might be blocked from going to some countries, or will be forced to do longer quarantines because of the lack of details on the card 
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Anti-vaxers love to claim, wrongly, that Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, and J&J are “experimental” vaccines, when the reality is that they all passed Phase 3 clinical trials. However, if they release this (MediGen?) vaccine before its Phase 3 trials are complete, this would be a real instance of an experimental vaccine being made available to the general public.
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My tentative plan is to complete my AZ doses in order to be protected, and then go to the US to get Pfizered.
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Just went to my local doctors to put my name down on the list for any unused vaccines. I know they have a list because Taiwanese staff at my school have signed up. They told me I wasn’t eligible because I’m a foreigner. Even though I have an NHI card and a valid ARC.
Not sure if they were just confused about the rules, wanted to make up an excuse because they already have way to many on their list or if this is a genuine thing. Anyone else experienced this? If it’s just this particular doctors that don’t really understand the rules then that has got me worried if something similar will happen when I am actually eligible for my shot through the normal route.
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Sounds like bulkshit.
A lot of petty discrimination right now. Ask him to show the statement where foreign residents aren’t eligible ?
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Or try another venue. . .
Guy
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I don’t know if it’s discrimination or if they are just confused about what they are supposed to do. Normally they have been very friendly to me. What I really want to know is if there is some kind of system problem at some doctors clinics with foreigners registering for this. And if there is, will I encounter the same problem when my school registers me for my jab.
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He told you you can’t but didn’t show or tell you why. Sounds like discrimination…I know a lot of foreigners get used to this in Taiwan.
All that said there may be a system problem but they should help you…Their patient…Try and figure it out.
Or try another country.
You are aware that some us who live here actually have jobs in Taiwan, right? 
Guy
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Well, that might have been more of a language barrier thing. And since that’s really my fault for not speaking better Chinese then I can’t really hold it against them. On the other hand, you might be right, could be that they thought “Jesus, we don’t wanna put a foreigner on the list, there’s bound to be extra paper work for that”. Who knows! Anyway, just wanted to check if anyone else had had a similar problem but I guess not!
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Hmm, not really an option, unfortunately
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Could be confusion! When i say confusion, i mean that individual worker might be stupid. I once went to have an eye test because I was getting my driving license. The guy swore blind that it was impossible for a foreigner to get a Taiwanese driving license so didn’t want to do it. Luckily there was another guy there who told him how ridiculous he was being.
Some people just dont want to deal with any situation out of the ordinary.
Discrimination for any reason is still discrimination.
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I think ‘we’ need to remember English isn’t everyones first language. Put yourself in ‘their’ shoes, imagine you’re a nurse/assistant/Dr at a GPs clinic in the UK or the US and a foreigner walks in speaking Mandarin and broken English, what you gunna do with a huge queue/line of ‘locals’ demanding the same?
Make up some nonsense and send them on their way, or spend time and resources trying to figure out what they want, getting medical history, etc ect?
Actually, in the US it’s common for hospitals and health systems to offer interpreter services.
Kaiser Permanente for example is one of the largest HMOs and it offers 24/7 interpreter services in 150 languages at no additional cost to members.
Here’s some others:
https://www.uclahealth.org/interpreters/
https://www.nyp.org/patients-visitors/interpreter-services
In major cities, it’s also very common to find doctors, nurses and staff who speak your language if you speak a language like Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.
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It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out. Almost all docs in Taiwan have passable English. It doesn’t mean they are good though. There’s a lot of really terrible local clinic docs.
It’s also common in the UK due to the large population of non-English speaking residents, buts that’s not my point. The foreigner population here isn’t huge, and the English speaking population is even smaller.
My point is, you can’t expect employees at a GPs office to speak English with such a small population of English speakers. My Mandarin is awful but I get by with Google, charades, and common sense.
If you think ‘discrimation’ is bad here, you should try the middle East where ‘skin tax’ is not only common place but widely advertised.
Personally I stick to major hospitals, I can’t recommend Taipei Medical University Hospital enough, I’ve never had an issue there.
Unfortunately I got my first jab at Mackay because of more availability, currently regretting that decision but, it is what it is, I’m sure I’ll get my second jab in due course.
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