Taiwan presses US health secretary on COVID vaccines

TAIPEI - Taiwan's health minister said on Friday he had spoken to his U.S. counterpart to ask for help in obtaining COVID-19 vaccines amid a spike in infections on the island and the U.S. health secretary would take the matter to President Joe Biden.

The news drew a swift rebuke from China, where Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that Taiwan was using the pandemic for "political manipulation". Beijing routinely condemns any high-level contacts between Washington and the island which China claims. Having for months been held up as an example of how to stop the virus in its tracks, Taiwan has over the past two weeks reported a spiralling number of infections in the community, with some 1,800 cases.