China Has Administered 1 Billion COVID-19 Vaccine Doses

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Riding an ultra-efficient spring vaccination drive, China has now administered more than one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, according to an announcement on the National Health Commission’s (NHC) official website on Sunday.

It is quite a milestone for a country that got off to a slow start with its mass vaccination drive.

According to data from the NHC, the vaccination rate sped up rapidly from the beginning of May onward – 500 million jabs were given between May 23 and June 19.

China’s doses account for nearly 40% of the 2.5 billion total shots administered around the world, as cited by CNN.

Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the NHC, expects at least 70% of China’s population to be vaccinated against COVID-19. However, based on the trajectory of China’s vaccination drive, a 70% vaccination rate should be attainable by early fall.

China’s biggest cities have higher vaccination rates, including the capital city, which has fully vaccinated more than 80% of its adult residents, as cited by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, only 4% of Tokyo’s residents have finished inoculation.

CGTN reported that China is currently conducting clinical trials for 21 COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Four have been granted conditional approval, and three are authorized for emergency use in the PRC.

On May 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. The move allowed countries to “expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer” the Sinopharm vaccine. The emergency list includes all the big name vaccines such as Pfizer/BioNTech, Astrazeneca-SK Bio and Moderna vaccines.

While China’s rapid rate of vaccination is a positive development in the fight against COVID-19, it likely won’t help open the country’s borders anytime soon.

One of the country’s top health officials said that even with 80% of the population fully vaccinated, a large inflow of travelers would pose a serious risk of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Here's Why China Still Can’t Open Its Borders

Despite its vaccination program, China cannot yet open its borders, according to one of the country’s top health officials.

Feng Zijian, deputy director general of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that even with 60-80% of the population fully vaccinated, opening the borders would still pose the risk of a severe outbreak of COVID-19.

He went on to explain that this is because in China’s largely COVID-free population, there is no way to know if China’s vaccines can prevent onward transmission as well as preventing serious sickness.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, such as those developed by Pfizer Inc., BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc., appear to prevent onward transmission as has been shown in a number of countries around the world.

CEO of Chinese pharmaceutical company Walvax Biotechnology Co. Li Yunchun, told Bloomberg that the company is developing its own mRNA vaccine. Li said he expects that vaccine to undergo phase three clinical trials in South America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central America. Whether or not it will be as effective as mRNA vaccines used in other countries remains to be seen.

According to Our World in Data, China has administered more than 800 million vaccine doses as of June 9. However, it is not clear how many of these are first and second doses. Approval was recently given for children in China as young as three years old to get vaccinated.

In China, residents can receive an inactivated vaccine produced by either Sinopharm or Sinovac. Clinical trials in other countries suggest the vaccines are effective in preventing serious illness caused by COVID-19.

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened overseas in the early part of 2020, China closed its borders to almost all foreigners at midnight on March 28, 2020. Anyone entering the Chinese mainland from overseas must still undergo strict measures of centralized quarantine and testing. Most places in the mainland require 21 days of centralized quarantine.

The latest news will be disappointing for many. Clearly, there is still a long way to go on the road back to normality. 

Source: Thatsshanghai, By Ryan Gandolfo, June 21; By Alistair Baker-Brian, June 11

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