I landed in the US a little over 2 weeks ago and got my first dose same day. Next shot coming up. Are you really worried that you won’t be able to get your 2nd dose? They’re practically begging people to get vaccinated with radio and TV ads. US has so much vaccine, including millions of doses of AZ that will almost certainly never be used in the US.
But yeah, I don’t think TW should be at the top of the list for the US. The poorest countries in the world with the lowest vaccination rates should be the top priority for vaccine charity.
Exactly. The problem in the US isn’t a shortage of vaccines, it’s a shortage of people willing to take it. Most who are willing to do so already have it, and now other than the newly-approved children, it’s just a matter of slowly chipping away at the anti-vaxxers.
As for the US prioritizing Taiwan for vaccine donations, that’s clearly a political and national security move. It’s in the best interests of the US for China to have less power over Taiwan. 750,000 represents less than 1% of vaccines the US is distributing to other countries, though, so they aren’t prioritizing Taiwan that much.
Maybe somebody here can help solve this mystery for me. No need to waste time saying that something is better than nothing, it’s a donation, etc. I already know that.
I was initially quite surprised to hear that active U.S. senators came to visit, and more so because they did it on an obvious military plane. And I was happy to hear about the vaccine donation. I fully assumed that the senators had escorted the vaccine delivery to Taiwan. All the visuals made it easy to jump to that conclusion. Later, I was quite disappointed and baffled to learn that it was not the case.
I feel like this event was a missed opportunity for Taiwan and for the U.S. In my opinion, what started out looking like strong support turned into something much weaker (promise to eventually deliver through a third party). Among other things, it was a huge missed PR opportunity for the U.S., bordering on bungled.
All things considered, I was very interested to try to find out why they didn’t bring vaccines with them. I haven’t been able to find any information about that online. If anyone here knows or finds anything, please share it. Thanks.
Tammy Duckworth is one of the few politicians I greatly admire. When she was on the short list for VP I learned a lot more about her. More guts than most and a real human being. She even got a chance to stick it to Beijing:
“Duckworth said that she wanted to come to Taiwan because her mother’s family originally lived in Chaozhou, Guangdong, and fled to Thailand on foot to escape the oppression of the Chinese Communist Party. “For me, it is particularly important to support another democracy in the [Asia] region.”
The U.S. Senator added, “My family and I know the price of freedom. I am here to tell you that the United States will not let you stand alone. We will be by your side to ensure that the people of Taiwan can get what they need to survive the epidemic.”
I got my first dose about a week after it was made universally available in the country.
Other people got it before me just by going into CVS and telling them they have a “condition.” (They don’t ask what it is. Everyone has a “condition.”)
Today, in the next phase of our vaccination effort, the President will announce that he will direct states, Tribes, and territories to make all adults eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine no later than May 1st.
The states themselves controlled the requirements. Some states had eligibility for all adults before others. Anyway, all states had opened eligibility to all adults as of mid April (see article below), so your comment that you still haven’t got your 2nd dose but got your 1st one as soon as it was universally available doesn’t make sense.
Maybe you just didn’t realize that you were eligible.
Ok, and if you got your 1st dose a week after it became universally available on May 1 (actually it was April 16 but just to indulge you), you would have been fully vaxxed by now. So your claim that you got vaxxed as soon as it was universally available but are still waiting for your 2nd shot as of 19 hours ago makes no sense.
If you got Moderna on May 7, you would have received your 2nd shot several days ago. If you got Pfizer on May 7, you would have received your 2nd shot on May 28.
I was scheduled to get my second Moderna shot this morning. But I’ll have to reschedule because I’m going on the road tomorrow, and I don’t know what the side effects are for the second dose.
So yeah, you didn’t get vaxxed a week after it was universally available. You got your 1st dose 3 weeks after all 50 states had opened up eligibility to all Americans over 16. And now you’re choosing to get the 2nd dose later than advised for your own convenience.
Thanks for clearing that up, as your original comment implied that there was some sort of issue with people in the US being able to get vaxxed.
