TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Health care workers are receiving the first shots in Taiwan’s COVID-19 vaccination drive. But the campaign won’t use supplies from China amid uneven distribution of the vaccines globally. Taiwan has 117,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and will administer them to 117,000 people. The first dose of the two-dose vaccine provides an efficacy rate of 71% and is meant to be followed by a booster eight weeks later. Taiwan has signed contracts securing doses from AstraZeneca, Moderna and COVAX. Countries have been scrambling for vaccines as rich countries buy up doses. China has offered hundreds of millions of doses of its own vaccines, but Taiwanese law bans import of Chinese vaccines made for human use.
