Recent deaths of elderly people who had received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were unrelated to the jabs, Taiwan’s top pandemic control official said.

Central Epidemic Command Center head Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan recorded 25 and 24 post-vaccination deaths on Friday and Saturday respectively. Authorities had conducted autopsies on four of the cases and arrived at preliminary results showing illnesses related to blood vessels in the heart, chronic illnesses and bronchial pneumonia.

The deaths have sparked worries, with the number of elderly people coming forward for vaccines on the decline. In Kaohsiung, elderly residents getting a jab at the Arena and Exhibition Center did not have to queue.

A woman named Tsai told Apple Daily Taiwan that she was delaying her vaccination in order to wait for the BioNTech vaccine being secured by Taiwanese businessperson and Foxconn founder Terry Gou.

The Kaohsiung Department of Health said its goal on Saturday was to vaccinate 8,549 elderly people but only 1,713 were inoculated as of 11 a.m., a sluggish outcome that it blamed on heavy rain in the morning.

In Taichung, the local authorities ignored rules set out by the central government and started vaccinating 13,000 community leaders.

Taichung mayor Lu Shiow-yen of the opposition party Kuomintang announced the move on Friday as city councilors urged the neighborhood chiefs to get vaccinated.

Centers for Disease Control spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang said neighborhood chiefs had helped with combating the pandemic, and belonged to the second priority group for vaccinations.

Taiwan on Saturday announced 128 COVID-19 cases, which included one imported case.

The island was set to take delivery of its third batch of 410,000 Moderna doses, with the China Airlines flight carrying the cargo expected to arrive from Luxembourg at Taoyuan international airport at 3:20 p.m. on Sunday.

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