Taiwan’s president receives domestically developed vaccine

By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has received her first dose of the island’s domestically developed coronavirus vaccine on Monday, launching its rollout to the public. The vaccine, made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp., was given emergency approval by regulators using a shortcut that prompted fierce opposition from parts of Taiwan’s medical and scientific community. Taiwanese regulators bypassed the large-scale, longer term studies that are typically used to approve vaccines. Instead, they compared the level of antibodies that Medigen’s vaccine was able to generate with that of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which has been approved by many governments and has undergone the full three stages of clinical trials.