Good thing I didn’t wait for my text message. My slot to book my second shot opened at 6pm and closed at 12pm the next day. Fortunately @afterspivak posted it in the info thread:
I saw it at 4am and was able to immediately book an appointment for my second choice of dates. I woke up the next day to discover that I had been sent my text message at about 9:30 with only 2 and a half hours left before the deadline.
Still, mustn’t grumble, at least the government is treating me like any other resident with regards to access to and cost of the vaccine.
You need to first indicate your intent to get vaccinated and which brands you will accept. It’s the middle button that states “Register” on that page. In Chinese it states more clearly “intent (or willingness for) registration.”
My understanding is that this is open always (ability to register intent). But maybe I’m wrong about this because it’s been a while since I did that step.
For forumosans getting a second shot of BNT, be aware that the normative interval for Pfizer/BNT (four weeks between the first and second shot) seems to be to be less effective than at slightly longer interval (7-8 weeks). [These results are from studies conducted in the UK and in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Quebec.]
Of course there are other factors for us to consider: whether you want to travel soon, or whether you think there is a risk of getting infected in the interim period.
What I don’t understand is why they don’t show when it starts to drop off if waiting too long for 2nd shot.
Would also like to see what it looks like if you only get 1 shot.
Think that would paint a much more clear picture for people.
To do proper studies on these questions needs lots of people to be asked to delay their 2nd shot or not have it at all. Then they need to be monitored for many months.
It becomes more difficult to find volunteers for this, now that many countries are starting to require proof of “full 2-shot vaccinations” to travel, enter some venues etc.
The other way to do this if a country has a centralised health database (usually those with large national health services, like here or the UK), researchers can search for outlier cases from all over the country where people have only had one shot, and approach them for blood testing after set times. But this requires quite a lot of resources and effort. New reports about vaccine efficacy in various situations are still coming out from time to time, so clearly research in these areas is ongoing.
Also, the first vaccines only started to become available from mid-December 2020, and in early months there was very limited supply, so the majority of people who have received vaccines so far may still be less than 6 months out from their first jab.
Plus no one is talking about one jab as sufficient. It seems pretty clear that three jabs (or J&J plus one—not really applicable to those of us in Taiwan) will become the new standard.
I’m pretty sure the data for 1 jab is already out there. That’s how they figured out they need to do a 2nd. I’m just saying a consolidated chart would be better instead of people having to look for the data separately.
I am saying no one is seriously recommending one jab as sufficient (aside from J&J, which seems to be the weakest performer out of the major vaccines that have gained approval).
