A post was merged into an existing topic: Share your Covid Vaccination Experience Here
254,281 doses given yesterday, of which 235,269 were second doses. 13,039.602 are now fully vaccinated which is 55.69% of the Total Population.
https://www.cdc.gov.tw/File/Get/Y1XwnaNJVdxvYQaruOk37Q
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That first dose number is rising ever so slowly now (now at 77.80%). I imagine that Omicron is helping to remove hesitancy by some. I guess weâll see. Weâre getting close to about as high as itâs going to get but I still feel that close to 90% (effectively everyone) is possible in Taiwan.
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Eligible population is only about ~86% I believe so that leaves us with only about 9ish percent of people left to go that havenât gotten their first shot yet and the people are still continuing to trickle in for that first jab so itâs pretty good all things considered, especially with the extreme vaccine hesitancy at the beginning with even doctors/nurses not wanting to get vaccinated with AZ.
With the news of Omicron and the current uncertainty about it though I agree, itâs probably getting more people who originally werenât going to get a shot to finally go out and get in line.
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Now letâs just hope the vaccines are actually effective against it or weâre back to square one.
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The numbers of first vaccinations in Taiwan have been steady at around 20,000 / day for a while. The news about Omicron has not had a noticeable impact on this slow paceâyet.
Guy
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It will still take a while before we see anything due to the way vaccination rounds are structured right? So next week we can see if it has had any effect on numbers.
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267,990 doses given yesterday, of which 239,148 were second doses. 13,300,061 are now fully vaccinated which is 56.80% of the Total Population.
https://www.cdc.gov.tw/File/Get/d564aU_Ez2SFmIKzYnKsOw
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Soon we will even be better than the US? Land of the free.
Breakdown on what percentage of what age group has been vaccinated where:
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Thereâs a relatively low vaccine uptake in places a little farther from the capital (east coast, and the hillbilly counties of Hsinchu and Miaoli). I suppose residents there think their (relative) distance from the capital will protect them.
Having seen what has happened in low-uptake rural regions of Canada, I can state with confidence: if they are thinking this way, they are wrong. Once itâs circulating in Taiwan, the virus will find them.
Guy
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Itâs probably not just thinking theyâre safer; Iâd guess getting the vaccine is that little bit more inconvenient there.
For the twitter user above the scary figure is that 65.6% fully vaccinated for the 75+ demographic. Apparently thatâs low? I canât find a direct comparison for Canada, but for every group over 60, Canadaâs at 90% fully vaccinated, as of Nov. 21 (source of screenshot below), so definitely much higher than what weâve got here.
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I attribute that to how astonishingly stubborn old people can be in Taiwan. Theyâve made it this far, no one will tell them what to do, etc.
Guy
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It does surprise me that, here, the rates for the first dose are lowest for the most at-risk demographic. Somethingâs going wrong with accessing that group - and with the rates that low, yeah, weâre going to see a lot of unnecessary death when the virus gets in.
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Hereâs an anecdote. I spend some time over the past weeks trying to persuade a staff member who has not been vaccinated to give it a shot. I think she is the only staff member in my building to not get vaccinated, despite having priority and having a chance to do so before I was eligible. I walked her through the numbers, and she agreed she should go on with this.
Today I asked how things went? She told me, a bit sheepishly, that she elected not to go to her appointment. Why? Her mother, in a distant city, told her it was not safe to do so because the staff member in question (her daughter) lived alone. Plus, the mother continued, she had a dream, and something went wrong! Plus something about a temple visit (I started to tune out at this point).
I get the fact that superstitious semi-literate people populate our lovely island, but the worker in questionâwho has a graduate degree from the US, and is surrounded by educated peopleâthought yes itâs better to listen to mother than to assess the numbers and make a choice.
It was a fascinating, if also disturbing, glimpse into some decision making here. 
Guy
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Just tell her you dreamed that she got COVID and died.
Iâd prefer not to play that game (i.e. mother substitute).
I will say though that there is some seriously sh&t parenting going on here.
Guy
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does taiwan have a plan if upcoming data suggest omicron becomes dangerous and evades current vaccines? pfizer and moderna CEO have already said that the current vaccines may need to be tweaked to protect against the new variant, they both believe that the current vaccines may lose most of their efficacy due to the massive mutations to the spike protein.
Taiwan would be up shits creek right now if it wasnât for major donations. Is there any actual data on Medigen yet? I thought phase 3 trial was supposed to be somewhere now? I donât see it after google searching, can somebody point me to it?
This isnât true (at least the âmostâ part). They are concerned (the Moderna CEO much more than the Pfizer CEO it seems). It may affect ability to neutralize infections due to mutations on the protein spikes of the virus, but immune response should still be robust. Vast majority of the hospitalized in the Omicron hotspot in South Africa are unvaccinated according to reports.
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I find it hard to be too concerned by this, tbh. Theyâve had the opportunity to get vaccinated for over 6 months now. If theyâve still chosen not to, thatâs 100% on them. Their decision. 
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