At present, vaccines are being offered to frontline healthcare workers at hospitals dealing with COVID-19 cases, but as of Sunday only 9,377 jabs had been administered. As the first batch of about 117,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine has an expiration date of June 15, legislators expressed concern that they would not be used in time. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung answers questions from legislators at a meeting of the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee at the legislature in Taipei yesterday. Taiwan would likely have received other vaccines or domestically produced vaccines by that time, so the possibility of signing a contract with BioNTech has receded, he said. Meanwhile, the center yesterday reported one new imported COVID-19 case, a Taiwanese who had returned from the Philippines.

Source: Taipei Times March 29, 2021 15:56 UTC