CORONAVIRUS/President, VP receive COVID-19 booster shot

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) both received their COVID-19 vaccine booster Saturday morning, as the government races to increase the nation's vaccination and booster rates amid a domestic outbreak caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Both Tsai and Lai received a booster dose of the Taiwan-based Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp.'s COVID-19 vaccine at National Taiwan University's College of Medicine.

Tsai later took to Facebook to describe the vaccination process as "smooth" and "painless," calling on people who received a second vaccine dose over 12 weeks ago to get a booster as soon as possible.

According to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), any individual aged 18 and older who has received two shots of the Medigen, Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT) or Moderna vaccine can choose any of those vaccines or an AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccine as a booster.

Only a half dose of the Moderna vaccine will be administered as a booster, however, in keeping with the company's recommendations.

Those who received two doses of AZ should choose a different brand as a booster for better protection, the CECC said.

Tsai urged people to continue observing the CECC's protocols, noting many countries around the world were experiencing a new wave of infections and that Taiwan was also facing fresh COVID-19 challenges.

In terms of new cases worldwide, 3.12 million were reported over the past 24 hours, according to World Health Organization data. Taiwan on Saturday confirmed 78 new infections, including 72 imported and 6 locally transmitted cases.

Tsai received her first dose of Medigen on Aug. 23, 2021, shortly after the Taiwanese pharmaceutical company was granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 vaccine by Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration.

Tsai's vaccination was followed by Lai a few days later, and both of them obtained their second dose on Sept. 30, 2021.

The president and the vice president were said to have chosen the Taiwan-developed Medigen as a means of displaying confidence in the domestically produced vaccine.