The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has accelerated the promotion of its own vaccine passport. In addition to aggressively exporting Chinese-made vaccines to nearly 70 countries to compete with Western vaccines, it has recently stepped up its efforts to provide “visa facilitation” to foreigners who choose Chinese vaccines. This is a major incentive for business people who must travel frequently to and from China, but it has also put some business people in a dilemma of “money or life”.
One medical professional told the Voice of America that he is concerned that if billions of people around the world are vaccinated on a large scale, the Chinese vaccine will be so ineffective that it could give rise to a variant of the virus, which could become a global epidemic prevention problem in the future.
European and American people vaccinated with Chinese vaccine
As of Friday (April 16), the American Chamber of Commerce and the European Union Chamber of Commerce have assisted in arranging for hundreds of members to receive free vaccinations at Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU) for the Chinese vaccine, including the Chinese The vaccines include those produced by Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The American Chamber of Commerce said it offered three doses of the vaccine to at least 300 people this week, and will continue to offer new doses as needed. The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China offers a similar service, but does not have a count of the number of people vaccinated.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) launched full registration of foreigners for Chinese-made vaccines in Beijing and Shanghai in late March. In addition, the Taiwan Affairs Office announced on Wednesday (April 14) that Taiwan residents in China can register for vaccinations in their place of residence with a residence permit or Chinese medical insurance certificate.
The announcement comes on the heels of an announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party of China that since March 15, further “visa facilitation” has been offered to foreigners who receive Chinese-made vaccines.
Visa Facilitation
However, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian at a regular press conference on March 15, people traveling to China must still present proof of a double-negative nucleic acid test and a serum antibody test before they can take a flight, and they must also comply with the regulations regarding the quarantine observation period after entering the country. In other words, the strict travel restrictions have not been lifted because of the Chinese-made vaccine.
Zhao Lijian also said that China is willing to actively work with other countries on mutual certification of vaccinations. But he was noncommittal when asked whether China would consider accepting WHO-approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson in the future and providing them with visa facilities.
Taiwanese businessman Kevin Hsu (center microphone holder, photo by Lillian Huang, Voice of America)
In anticipation of a further relaxation of travel restrictions as a result of the vaccine passport, Taiwanese businessman Hsu said that he and many of his Taiwanese business friends, and even the Taiwanese general managers of major technology companies, are not averse to receiving the Chinese vaccine to enhance their protection on the one hand, and on the other hand, if China subsequently opens the “small three way bubble”, Taiwanese nationals will be able to travel through the Kinmen and Xiamen ferry services with a 7-day valid visa. On the other hand, if China subsequently opens the “Little Three Way Bubble”, Taiwanese nationals can enter China through the Kinmen and Xiamen boat trips with a nucleic acid test valid for seven days and then be exempted from quarantine restrictions.
This would be very convenient for those who must travel to and from China for business, he said.
Business community looks to vaccine passport
This is the biggest incentive, because to be able to become a vaccine passport, or to go to China, even if it has not been implemented to the whole world vaccine passport, for China to be able to reduce the quarantine, I believe, is a big incentive,” Xu said to Voice of America. Many people are eager to play. And the future heard that the small three links will be the first to open, then you can take the small three links, that will reduce a lot of trouble on isolation.”
However, Xu also admits that because he is concerned about the safety and efficacy of the Chinese-made vaccine, many of his foreign friends in China want “more choices” and even prefer to wait for China to import the Pfizer vaccine before administering it at their own expense.
Three European and American people in China, who asked not to be named, also told the Voice of America that they are still waiting to see what happens and are in no hurry to get the vaccine. However, they all said in the same breath that only Chinese-made vaccines are available in China now, and they hope to have more vaccine options in the future.
One of the American nationals in Beijing said he is in no hurry to get the shot because he has a residence permit in China, so visa facilitation is not much of an inducement for him. He told Voice of America that he would probably wait until a true quarantine-free vaccine passport is introduced in the future before he would consider administering it. He also hopes that China and the U.S. will complete mutual certification of vaccines as soon as possible, so that business people will not be caught in a dilemma where the two countries do not recognize each other’s vaccines and must be forced to mix multiple vaccines.
Should I get the Chinese vaccine?
Another American in Shanghai said that her family members in the U.S. have completed the vaccination, but she has not yet planned to return to the U.S. to visit her family, and the low infection rate in China makes her not in a hurry to administer the vaccine. She told VOA that she had confidence in the safety of the Chinese vaccine, but recently heard that Chinese officials have also admitted that the Chinese vaccine has low protection, leaving her at a loss.
A German national, also based in Shanghai, told VOA that quarantine-free travel is a big incentive for businesspeople. However, she would still rationally consider the safety and protective power of each vaccine. Although she personally prefers to wait for China to import the Pfizer vaccine before administering it at her own expense, she said she is not in a hurry to get the vaccine if there is no urgent need for it because of the lack of long-term data on vaccines in various countries.
In China, only Hong Kong currently offers a choice between the popular China Kexin vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine. But a month after the start of the campaign, the current vaccination rate is poor at only 500,000 people, or about 7.5 percent, according to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor last week. Among them, the statistics as of the end of March, more than half are to choose the Chinese Coxing vaccine.
According to statistics from the Hong Kong Department of Health as of the weekend, the total number of people who died in Hong Kong after administering the vaccine was 16, of which 14 died after administering the Coxing vaccine, including senior citizens who were not recommended for the vaccine, while two died after administering the Pfizer vaccine.
China’s vaccine protection is low
A Taiwanese national living in Hong Kong, who asked not to be named, told VOA that Chinese nationals in Hong Kong who need to return to China to visit relatives or foreigners who need to enter the country to do business are likely to choose to get the Coxin vaccine.
But she said she was intimidated by the high mortality rate caused by the Coxin vaccine in Hong Kong, especially since she did not necessarily need to enter China in the near future, and of course chose to get the Pfizer vaccine.
For business people, facing low protection and safety concerns about the Chinese-made vaccine, it is undoubtedly a choice between money and life.
According to the Associated Press, Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, publicly admitted at a conference in Chengdu on April 10 that Chinese vaccines do not offer high protection. At the time, he said that since Beijing has not approved any foreign vaccines for use in China, China is considering whether it should further improve the protection of Chinese vaccines by optimizing vaccination procedures and adopting different technical routes for sequential vaccination.
Although Gao Fu changed his story in an interview with the Global Times the next day and criticized the media for misinterpreting his statement, it still reignited the discussion and concerns about the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines, especially since Gao Fu did not present relevant data to prove how protective the Chinese-made vaccines really are.
In early January, Shanghai vaccine expert Tao Lina also described Sinopharm’s vaccine as “the most unsafe vaccine in the world” via Weibo, according to Ming Pao.
Tao said that even though the vaccine’s Phase III trial data showed 79 percent protection, it had “a total of 73 local/systemic adverse reactions,” which made him “suck in a breath of cold air” after reading it.
According to Bloomberg, which cited experimental data from some countries on Monday (April 12), the Kexing vaccine had only slightly more than 50% protection, while the other Chinese-made vaccines had 66-79% protection, of which the highest protection was only 79%, much lower than Moderna, Pfizer and even the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine. Sputnik and other vaccines made in Russia all have a protection power of over 90%.
Vaccine nationalism
In an interview with the Voice of America, Luo Junjun, secretary-general of the Taiwan Medical Association, said that as a major exporter of vaccines, China has the responsibility to make clear the safety and efficacy of its own vaccines, and to produce empirical clinical data, including phase III laboratory data, for scientific certification.
He said China should not politicize its epidemic prevention efforts or even block vaccines with higher protection in other countries in order to promote home-grown vaccines or vaccine nationalism.
He said the Chinese vaccine has such a low protective power, but a massive increase in vaccination rates in nearly 70 exporting countries, even if billions of people are vaccinated, may not help prevent the epidemic and may more likely spawn variant viruses.
These countries have a lot of population, they generally hit the Chinese vaccine, not only did not effective in addition, there are two things to think about, the first is that hitting so many will cause the variant virus more rampant, because under the pressure of immunity, did not kill the virus. It’s like taking a bottle of insecticide today and spraying cockroaches, but it doesn’t kill the cockroaches, (instead) the more you practice, the more powerful the cockroaches become. Under the immune pressure that is not powerful enough, it just practices more variants of the virus. (Second), these countries with large populations are going to be one of the most difficult black numbers and difficult areas in this world to prevent Covid-19 in the future.”
He said that those who are administering the Chinese-made vaccine in China now may have the mentality that “the worst thing is that it doesn’t work and they will get another vaccine like Pfizer later.
But in the absence of scientific evidence, Luo said the medical profession does not recommend mixing vaccines because it may cause cross-reactivity in the immune system or over-excite the side effects of the immune system. Even if the vaccines are mixed, they should be given at least a long period of time apart, or else it will be difficult to identify which vaccine is the problem if there is no way to confirm the cause and effect, Luo said.
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