China’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign is lagging behind the US and Europe

China cracked down on the coronavirus by deploying its authoritarian system to do things: from building hospitals in days, to testing entire cities and basically blocking its vast border.

So when the time came to launch its internally developed COVID-19 vaccines, the world expected an effort to inoculate similar speed and ferocity, with the potential to put Western governments back in a bad position.

But seven weeks after the start of China’s campaign, the picture is surprisingly bleak. The more than 31.2 million doses administered since the official start date, December 15, place it behind only the United States, with its nearly 35 million injections. However, for a population of 1.4 billion, China distributed just over two doses for every 100 people, compared with three in the European Union, 10 in the U.S. and almost 60 in Israel, according to the vaccine tracker at Bloomberg.

The effort also appears to fall short of the internal goal of vaccinating 50 million people by the Chinese New Year holiday that begins on February 11, raising questions about whether the world’s second largest economy could remain closed like the rest of the planet – encouraged by herd immunity – starts to open.

“We hoped they would succeed, as long as the government was willing to apply it through the top-down mobilization that we know it has done in the past,” said Huang Yanzhong, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University . “Now it looks like we were optimistic.”

China’s lack of momentum is not being caused by the hiccups of distribution or drop in production seen in places like Europe, with vaccines being launched in more than 25,000 locations, including renovated stadiums, museums and community centers. It has also been distributing some doses under emergency authorization since mid-2020.

Vaccines made by local developers Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and China National Biotec Group Co. of Sinopharm can also be easily stored in refrigerator temperatures for more than a year, avoiding the logistical challenges of high-tech mRNA vaccines used in the USA, which they need to be kept in deep freezing and risk damaging if thawed too early.

Rather, the slowness appears to be due to widespread hesitation across the Chinese population, for reasons ranging from concern for safety and the level of protection promised by local vaccines, to the lack of urgency, with COVID-19 largely part confined to winter outbreaks in northern parts. This could pose a problem for nations and companies in need of China – with its more than 1 million foreign students and the world’s leading consumer market – to open up, and for the country’s own growth prospects, despite its resilience so far .

At current vaccination speeds, China will achieve collective immunity in just 5.5 years, compared with 11 months for the U.S. and six months for the UK, according to the Bloomberg tracker.

“If vaccination is not accelerated, this could further delay the opening of China’s borders and weigh on economic growth in the coming years, as it will keep the frequency and intensity of COVID-19 outbreaks and government restrictions higher than the necessary, ”said Louis. Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong. He expects China to accelerate its launch at some point, aware of any potential disadvantages.

But unlike testing, quarantining and blocking travelers, Chinese officials do not appear to be forcing the issue – for now.

Vaccination remains voluntary, even for key groups such as medical professionals. While other world leaders roll up their sleeves to get COVID-19 vaccines for the cameras, it is unclear whether those from China – including President Xi Jinping – received photos given to port workers and employees of state-owned companies who have traveled abroad since mid-2000. 2020.

With the task of measuring the demand for vaccines among their employees, the Chinese Bloomberg companies interviewed reported interest ranging from one third to less than half of their employees.

Anne Zhu, an employee of a state airline in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, said she had a chance because some vaccine priority flight attendants did not want them, pushing administrative staff in line. Zhu said only 13% of the airline’s 1,200 employees at the Wuxi branch were vaccinated, citing internal information. That will increase to a third when another group of employees takes pictures next weekend.

At the American School in Shanghai, professor of social studies Kirk Irwin said that only 30% of the faculty, which includes Chinese and foreign citizens, received the Sinovac vaccine when it was offered.

“Some people were thinking, if I make it in April or May, I will wait, because everyone feels very safe in Shanghai and no one is traveling abroad,” said Irwin, who is originally from Canada.

China’s vaccine developers have been criticized for their lack of transparency about the safety and efficacy of their vaccines, disclosing less data than their Western counterparts. This has fueled skepticism in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia, which have vaccine deals with China. As in other countries, medical professionals in China are also concerned with being guinea pigs for the first vaccines.

Sophia Qu, a doctor at a hospital in southern China’s Guangdong province, did not accept the offer of the vaccine because she is concerned about the negative side effects. Less than half of her colleagues have been vaccinated, she said.

Some in China also prefer to wait for a foreign-made vaccine, due to previous scandals about poor-quality Chinese-made vaccines.

Jason, a graduate student in Beijing who only wanted to use his first name, said he would expect the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. to be approved in China, with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. licensed to distribute it. He is concerned that vaccines developed locally do not provide the same level of protection as mRNA vaccines, with continuing uncertainty about their true efficacy rates, given the irregular and conflicting disclosures.

Also contributing to less than expected acceptance is China’s decision to limit photos only to people aged 18 to 59, leaving out almost a fifth of the population over 60, in contrast to the approach in the US and elsewhere. places like Norway, which are prioritizing nursing home residents.

Given the success of the containment, China has a very low level of immunity against people who contract the virus, which means that it depends more on vaccination than countries like the US to protect its people, especially if it wants to reopen its borders and allow citizens to travel freely again.

At the current rate of vaccination, international travel would need to be limited for years, said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor of health safety at City University of Hong Kong.

While China’s zero-tolerance strategy to extinguish the coronavirus has been validated by the results, that success risks being discounted if the country fails to maintain vaccination, said Huang, of Seton Hall.

“The West has done a very bad job of containing the virus, but if they get collective immunity before China, it will send a strong message,” he said. “If the West starts to lift the blockades and open up to each other, it will present a major challenge for the Chinese model.”