(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) Medical Tightness and Vaccines Shortage Taiwan Authorities' Epidemic Prevention Policy Provoked Controversy
China News Agency, Taipei, May 28th. In the past few days, Taiwan's local new crown pneumonia epidemic has continued to expand, and problems such as insufficient medical capacity and tight vaccine supply have gradually become obvious, which has once again triggered criticism from the Taiwanese society on the authorities' epidemic prevention policies.
Some Taiwanese media pointed out that the authorities are arrogant and negligent in their efforts to block the self-purchasing by counties and cities, and misinterpret the mainland’s goodwill in terms of vaccine policy.
According to reports from the Central News Agency, United News Network, and ETtoday News Cloud, the Taiwan authorities’ "Pandemic Epidemic Command Center" announced on the 28th that 297 newly confirmed local cases and 258 "corrected return" cases were added, mainly in Taipei and New Taipei; another new 19 deaths were added. Since the first death in this wave of the epidemic on the 18th of this month, a total of 66 people have died.
Among the death cases announced on the same day, 2 cases died before hospitalization, and the youngest was only over 40 years old.
According to Taiwanese media "Common World Magazine", the high rate of severe illness and the lower age of death cases have become the main characteristics of this wave of epidemics.
In addition, the number of deaths before hospitalization in this wave of epidemics has gradually increased, highlighting the current situation of tight medical capacity in Taipei and New Taipei.
In the face of the continuing epidemic, Taiwanese epidemic prevention experts pointed out that getting the new crown vaccine as soon as possible is the key to stopping the epidemic.
However, Chen Xiuxi, deputy dean of the National Taiwan University School of Public Health, said that the current vaccination rate in Taiwan is very low, and it has little effect on blocking community transmission.
As of the morning of the 28th, Taiwan has obtained 727,000 doses of the new crown vaccine, and a total of 333,000 vaccination times.
The command center announced on the 27th that the first batch of Modena vaccines arrived in the afternoon of the 28th, totaling 150,000 doses.
However, public opinion believes that in the face of severe illness and rising mortality among the people, the effect of these vaccines is "a drop in the bucket."
Regarding the problem of insufficient vaccines, all walks of life in Taiwan and the mayors of many counties and mayors have called on the authorities to resolve them as soon as possible.
If the authorities cannot obtain them in time, they should open the counties and cities to purchase them on their own.
In this regard, the person in charge of the command center said that counties and cities need to apply to the authorities in advance to purchase on their own.
The "United Daily News" editorial pointed out that Taiwan's vaccination rate is far behind, mainly because the authorities have been lucky and have not actively deployed procurement.
The editorial also pointed out that in order to prevent people from purchasing vaccines on their own, the authorities have launched a rumor, describing the purchase of BNT (Pfizer) vaccines represented by Shanghai Fosun as a "defective product" and "coming to expire."
Regarding the goodwill of the mainland to provide vaccines, the authorities are more cold-spoken and continue to confrontational attitudes, without any sense of responsibility for "people-oriented".
However, according to the "New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic and People's Vaccination Willingness Online Polling" conducted by Taiwan TVBS TV station, 91% of the more than 450,000 people who participated in the survey indicated that they would like to receive the BNT vaccine, if it is through a mainland agent 81% of the people who are willing to vaccinate still account for purchases. (Finish)