TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — National Taiwan University Public Health Professor Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) took to Facebook and urged authorities to administer COVID-19 booster shots containing BA.4 and BA.5 spike protein components on Friday (Sept. 2).
“In response to the BA. 5 Omicron season this fall and winter, Taiwan should be administering bivalent COVID booster vaccines containing BA.4 and BA.5. Bivalent vaccines containing only BA.1 cannot be counted as next-gen vaccines,” Chan wrote.
In a post titled, “The BA.5 booster is the real next-gen vaccine,” Chan cited Our World in Data statistics and compared Taiwan’s BA.2 outbreak to the U.S.’ BA.1 outbreak between January and August. “By comparing daily infection and death rates, we can see that Taiwan’s COVID outbreak during these eight months was worse than the U.S.’,” he wrote.
According to Chan, the seven-day rolling average infection rate in the U.S. hit its peak on Jan. 15, reaching 0.2394%, while in Taiwan, it hit its peak on May 20 at 0.3505%. Meanwhile, the seven-day rolling average death rate in the U.S. peaked on Feb. 1 at 0.000773%, and, in Taiwan, on June 11 at 0.000805%.
On Thursday (Sept. 1), the U.S.’ seven-day rolling average infection rate was 0.0247% and seven-day rolling average death rate was 0.000158%, while Taiwan’s were 0.1196% and 0.000133%, Chan added.
“Both the U.S. and Taiwan have been reviewing bivalent COVID vaccines created especially for Omicron in the last few days, but the two vaccines are different in that the bivalent COVID vaccine that received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an updated booster shot that contains BA.4 and BA.5. The Taiwan FDA is currently reviewing a research bivalent vaccine containing only BA.1.”
Per Chan, as the dominant subvariant of the Omicron virus for this fall and winter will be BA.5, only booster shots with the virus’ components can better prepare the public against its spread.