Regarding Bloomberg publishing its June “Covid Resilience Rankings” of each country, Taiwan, from its former best ranking at second place, slid down to 44th place, almost at the bottom of the 53 total countries surveyed. The Kuomintang (KMT) today (June 29th) states: this is not only a grave warning sign for Taiwan, it is also verification that the international media is admonishing the Tsai Ing-wen administration for its excessively complacent behavior regarding pandemic prevention, so complacent that it has failed to acquire sufficient vaccines. The Tsai administration should humbly self-reflect, do better, and proactively fight for internationally verified vaccines. If the administration is unwilling to accept the suggestions coming in from all directions, it may greatly delay Taiwan from overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic!
The KMT emphasizes that Taiwan’s fall in pandemic prevention to the bottom of the rankings is truly regretful! The international media had raised admonition early on; last November, Bloomberg had already pointed out the problem of Taiwan’s “vaccine resources being in a disadvantageous state;” last December, Bloomberg once again appealed to Taiwan, stating that Taiwan “still has more space to work hard to acquire vaccines;” and every month this year, Bloomberg has pointed out the crucial issue of Taiwan’s “vaccine coverage being too low.” Other international media outlets such as the CNN, New York Times, Time, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy Magazine, and the BBC, Financial Times, and others, all saw that Taiwan’s overseas vaccine procurement operations were too slow and that vaccination rates were too low. However, the Tsai administration’s manner of fighting the pandemic took a turn for the worse: it became capricious and unwilling to accept expert suggestions. Furthermore, the administration hastily implemented the 3+11 policy, finally causing a rupture in pandemic prevention and causing Taiwan’s pandemic prevention achievements to decline sharply.
The KMT points out that, under this grim situation of pandemic, the Taiwan people cooperated with every pandemic prevention task with discipline, eliciting approval from international public opinion for Taiwan’s pandemic prevention early on. Yet, the central government saw as unimportant and neglected its responsibility of vaccination procurement work, failing to deploy vaccines in advance, leading to the recent chaos over vaccinations. This has caused Taiwan’s follow-up pandemic prevention work to be many times more difficult. However, the Tsai administration continues to do its own thing; it’s powerless to acquire internationally verified vaccines and sets all sorts of restrictions on assisting private organizations. This has caused the process of Taiwan’s vaccine procurement to not only fall behind, but to actually be stuck in a rut. The administration can only rely on donations of vaccines from other countries. To the Tsai administration: are you prioritizing the people’s health and safety in your considerations?
The KMT emphasizes that the pandemic situation remains difficult. The Delta variant of the virus has already invaded Taiwan, causing the health and safety of the people to be even more severely threatened. Hopefully the Tsai administration can genuinely listen to the suggestions of experts, and not continue to be caught up in its own ideology. The Tsai administration should prioritize the people’s safety and quickly arrange a procurement strategy for the second round of vaccines so that Taiwan can overcome the threat of the pandemic as quickly as possible.
