Chen Shizhong Spends $7 Billion More on Vaccines, Criticized for Corruption

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According to Taiwan’s “China Times News” on September 20, the former head of Taiwan’s health and welfare department, Chen Shizhong, represented the Democratic Progressive Party in the Taipei mayoral election. In the past, when he was also the head of Taiwan’s epidemic command center, he decided on the brand, quantity and amount of vaccine procurement for the new crown, which was equivalent to deciding whether the epidemic could be effectively controlled in a timely manner, and he held great power, but his decision was not transparent.

He was challenged in the election campaign to disclose the price of the vaccine procurement contract, but the command center, in order to help Chen Shizhong out, only said in general terms that the Taiwan authorities would purchase 53.51 million doses of vaccine by the end of this year, with a total amount of NTD 40.86 billion (NTD 1 is about RMB 0.22 – this newspaper’s note). However, comparing the information about vaccines, the amount is about 33.54 billion yuan for the same dose based on the average price of each brand of vaccine, which is about 7 billion yuan different from the procurement amount announced by the command center. Epidemic prevention expert Wang Renxian criticized that this is naked corruption!

Tsai Ing-wen handpicked Chen Shizhong to represent the DPP in the Taipei mayoral election at the end of the year, citing the excellent performance of the epidemic prevention chief during his tenure. However, in the battle against the epidemic, 6 million Taiwanese people were infected with the disease, many of whom could not fully recover their health, and about 10,000 died, causing a public health crisis with heavy losses and irreparable family tragedies.

In fact, the price of vaccines varies from brand to brand, and the Epidemic Command Center has intentionally concealed the actual situation by only announcing the average price in general.

Yang Zhiliang, who was once the head of Taiwan’s health department, said that the command center is constantly covering cards from masks and fast screening to vaccine procurement, so that the public cannot see where the money is spent; the prices of different brands of vaccines vary, and the command center should calculate the average price in proportion to the quantity purchased, instead of calculating the average price directly, which is more suspicious instead of twisting and turning.