Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) More than 750,000 people had made an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot in the first seven hours after the central government's 1922 vaccination website was relaunched Saturday, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

Between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., 753,146 people had secured a booking for a booster dose of one of the four COVID-19 vaccines available in Taiwan, CECC data showed.

Around 80 percent of the appointments (599,413) were made to get the Moderna vaccine, followed by Pfizer-BioNtech (129,531), Medigen (21,152) and AstraZeneca (3,050), according to the CECC.

In Taiwan, a total of 6,864,019 people in Taiwan are eligible to get a booster dose to be administered 12 weeks after their second shot, said CECC spokesperson, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥).

However, because some local governments chose to administer the vaccine in their own arrangements, the CECC estimated that around 1.1 million people can make an appointment for their booster shots to be given between Jan. 17 and Jan. 23.

Local governments in Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung and Pingtung County have planned or are operating walk-in vaccination services, while Taipei, New Taipei, Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung also run their own vaccine booking websites.

In Taipei, the city government said it already accepted more than 200,000 appointments for a vaccine shot during the Jan. 17-23 period.

The 1922 website, which was first introduced in July 2021, was closed at the end of last year, as members of the public can also make appointments directly with hospitals, clinics and public health centers run by local governments for a COVID-19 vaccine shot.

The central government's website was reopened Saturday amid complaints about difficulties to contact each medical institutions to check if they still have the COVID-19 vaccine doses available for appointments.

Chuang said the CECC estimated that more than 300,000 people can still make an appointment before the 1922 website stops accepting bookings at noon Sunday.

However, the website shows that bookings are already full in many locations.

If people are unable to make an appointment before noon Sunday, the 1922 website will again begin accepting a new round of appointments sometime next week for a booster vaccine shot to be administered in the week starting Jan. 24, he said, without specifying on which day that will happen.

To date, 80.62 percent of Taiwan's 23.37 million population have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 72.1 percent have been given two doses, CECC data shows.

A total of 1,366,485 people, or 5.85 percent, have been given a booster dose, while 0.28 percent of the population, who are immunocompromised or have a weakened immune system have received an "additional dose," which can be administered 28 days after the second shot, according to the CECC data.