Around 595,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday, as the government plans to administer around 1 million doses of the brand’s vaccines starting on Sept. 3.
The latest delivery of the AstraZeneca doses, the seventh from the manufacturer as part of an order of 10 million doses placed by the government, was flown in from Bangkok by China Airlines and arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 3:16 p.m.
The newly delivered vaccines pushed the quantity of doses delivered to Taiwan by the company to nearly 3.27 million.
Taiwan has also received 609,600 AstraZeneca doses from the global sharing platform COVAX, as well as donations of 3.34 million doses from Japan and 20,000 doses from Lithuania.
The AstraZeneca doses will be the main vaccine to be administered in the upcoming round of vaccinations from Sept. 3 to Sept. 10, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
Around 806,000 of the 1 million people eligible for the vaccination made an appointment through a government website by the Monday noon deadline for their first COVID-19 jab, according to the CECC.
On Tuesday, the CECC announced a new vaccine appointment period, which will run from 10 a.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Saturday.
The new appointment period will cover people who registered to get a vaccine prior to July 19 and are aged between 23 and 28, the CECC said.
Those previously eligible for AstraZeneca vaccines were those who registered for a vaccine prior to July 19 and were 29 or older.
Over 10 million people, or 42.73 percent of Taiwan’s 23.5 million population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but only 3.8 percent had been given the two doses required to be fully vaccinated, CECC data released on Tuesday showed.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel