The number of Taiwanese citizens seeking flu vaccinations has surged. This comes after the news that popular Taiwanese actor Shih Wei-Yuan (Xu Shiyuan) passed away from pneumonia after contracting the flu.
On the 4th, local media outlet Liberty Times reported, citing health authorities in Tainan, southern Taiwan, that the number of people wishing to receive the flu vaccine increased by about 30% compared to the previous day.
It was also reported that there were lines of 20 to 30 people waiting for vaccinations at local medical facilities, and the remaining 7,000 doses of the vaccine from the previous October were fully booked within 3 hours.
The news of the actor's death had an impact. Earlier, on the 3rd, Central News Agency (CNA) reported that the actor died from acute pneumonia caused by the flu during a trip to Japan on the 2nd.
The actor gained fame by playing the female lead in the Taiwanese drama "Boys Over Flowers." In Korea, she is sometimes referred to as "Taiwanese Geum Jan-di," after the name of the female lead in the domestic broadcast drama.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that the number of patients visiting hospitals due to seasonal flu from the 19th to the 25th of last month reached over 162,000, the highest in 10 years.