US Senators visit Taiwan with good news

Like the other approved vaccines on the table (AZ, as well as Pzifer/BioNTech and Moderna), J&J is said to be very helpful in slowing down (if not completely halting) serious cases of infection resulting in hospitalization and death. That’s the key point.

Guy

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Yeah, for the bigger picture. I’m not complaining though. It’s bad enough we have to rely on charity. Sigh.

Very rare for a US military identified aircraft to land in Taiwan.

Different message than an official white and blue US government aircraft.

Easy to offload other things and carry over to AIT.

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just my guesses. 1.) a quasi military exercise. I read that the air defense unit stationed in the Songshan Airport was exercising in coordination during the C-17’s landing and taking off. 2.) a priming thing to prepare for the arrival of many C-17s loaded with tanks and US marines in the future.

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Same. She’s my senator.

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Who cares? People’s stupid brand loyalty around vaccines is slowing down vaccination.

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Picture of C-17 in front of Taipei 101 cannot be real arriving or departing songshan airport.

Unless there were some additional fly around or something and there is no pattern around songshan.

Are there any reports about the C-17 flying around in Taipei other than arriving and departing?

I don’t think it’s brand loyalty that’s stopping the vaccination. It’s the lack of vaccines that’s stopping it. I’m not sure if you’re talking about the rather low vaccination rate for AZ, but it would be quite unfair to judge us like this considering AZ has been BANNED from many developed countries. Of course people would want to wait for a better choice when there wasn’t a pandemic.

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That picture was shared in many internet posts today. I downloaded it. It looks like being taken from a smart angle. Some other pictures I saw have 101 in the background when the C-17 was taxiing. So I guess it’s possible to shoot that at the right place the right time.

Wait. LTN has an interview with the photographer. news link

隨後C-17飛離台北時,正好經過101大樓,熱愛攝影的醫師陳銘德正好拍下他們「合影」的珍貴畫面,並透過友人分享在臉書上。陳銘德表示:「感謝美國的即時雨!或許被大樓擋住吧,一直看不見C-17運輸機停在松山機場的那個角落。等了一個多小時,收攤回到車上,突然接到朋友的電話說美國參議員要離開了,連忙拿著相機衝上山,拍下歷史性的一刻!」

caption of the photo in the LTN interview
美國跨黨派參議員訪團今搭乘美軍C-17運輸機旋風抵台,醫師陳銘德拍下C-17與台北101同框的珍貴畫面。(陳銘德授權使用)

Update:
The photographer took the photo from Zhongyong mountain according to his Facebook page:

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Interesting, I was trying to figure out how he knew the schedule and where to be and that explains how he did it. Very cool!

Please show me which developed countries have banned AZ. People in Taiwan weren’t willing to take it, during a pandemic, until very recently, so yes that’s exactly what I mean about brand loyalty slowing down vaccination.

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Well in the case of a war (which you seem to be referring to), I’m not sure where these C-17s are going to be landing?

Today was a symbolic message. Nothing more, nothing less.

So the flight came from Guam or Okinawa?

South Korea

Interesting. Do you have a link to the flight path by any chance.

It would be interesting to see how direct the flight path was.

Maybe banned is a strong word. Not approved. So what if people didn’t get vaccinated when there was NO pandemic in Taiwan? I didn’t get vaccinated for malaria, too, does that make me a bad person? There’s no need to worry about malaria in Taiwan, that’s why most Taiwanese didn’t get vaccinated for malaria. People only need to get vaccinated for malaria IF they’re traveling to the countries that has a risk. Same goes for COVID. Further more, there are still many unknowns about the virus and the disease, of course people would want a safer option (Pfizer, Moderna). Many were willing to get Pfizer or other brands shots even then but they weren’t available at the time.

Really horrible comparison. Malaria is caused by a parasite and is not transmitted from human to human. You could be in a room full of people with malaria and you would not be at risk.

COVID is caused by a virus that spreads person to person via aerosols and is highly infectious. It has spread to almost every corner of the globe.

TW was very successful at keeping the virus out of the community, until it wasn’t. There was never an immunity bubble around TW, and between the NZ pilot and Taoyuan outbreak, everyone in TW had ample warning of what was not only possible but likely the longer the pandemic dragged on.

If there was never a risk in TW, why was it required to wear masks?

Comments like this are so blah because they imply that because we don’t know everything, we don’t know anything. We know a lot about COVID, vaccines in general, and the efficacy of the COVID vaccines specifically.

Edit: I should also add that there’s only 1 approved vaccine for Malaria (recently) and it’s not widely used because of low efficacy. It’s not approved for use in any Western country. If you go to an area where malaria is endemic, you will be prescribed antimalarial drugs that you begin taking a couple of days before you enter the area and for a limited time after you leave.

Edit 2: AZ isn’t approved in places like the US because it hasn’t sought approval.

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I’m not saying that vaccine is a bad idea, I’m saying that it’s reasonable for people to wait for a better option when there has already been one.

Malaria, HPV, flu, whatever. You only need to get vaccinated when there’s a risk, and if you have a better option in medication, you’d choose that. If there’s a medication with less side effect, you’d choose that. When you have no risk of catching such disease and a medication with a bad side effect, but there’s a different product on the market with less side effect, you’d choose that. If you’re not hungry and there’s a rotten sushi, of course you’re gonna travel to the nearest sushi place for better food. It’d be a different story if your at the brink of starving to death.