The Chinese government recently offered COVID-19 vaccines to the public. As the authorities reiterated that preventive vaccines are not covered by medical insurance, the prices of vaccines vary widely from 400 yuan to more than 8,000 yuan. Some people are concerned about the safety of the vaccine and are not considering vaccination.
COVID-19 continues to ravage the world. Healthcare workers and nursing home residents are the priority groups for the first round of vaccination against the coronavirus, which began on Monday. Then came Britain, which began vaccinating on Tuesday, and Hong Kong, which will offer free vaccinations in the middle of next month. More than a million people in China are said to have been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine, but the process has been low-key, with residents in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere telling RADIO Free Asia they had not heard of the vaccine, but respondents said they refused to be vaccinated because of concerns about its quality.
Guo Li, a parent of children affected by tainted milk powder in Beijing, told THE BBC on Tuesday: “The vaccination has not reached my family and my family. However, I have a friend in Guangzhou, he said (the community staff) asked his whole family to get vaccinated, but they all refused because of the safety problems of the vaccine, including the fact that many children had problems getting vaccinated. Family members say ‘no’. If you don’t get it, your destiny is in your own hands.”
Accidents involving indigenously developed vaccines in China are common
Vaccine regulation in China is so chaotic that thousands of children have been sickened or injured after being vaccinated over the past decade. For example, the vaccine incident in Shanxi Province in 2007 resulted in the injury or death of nearly 100 children, and in the pertussis vaccine incident of Changsheng In 2018, 250,000 substandard vaccines entered the market.
Guo said public concerns about the quality of vaccines are well founded. “The risks are very high,” he said. “Even state-owned companies like [U.S.] Pfizer and BioNTech [biotechnology], Which are German companies, are not guaranteed 100 percent.
Regarding the current price of COVID-19 vaccines in China, the official National Medical Insurance Administration reiterated that “preventive vaccines need to be paid at one’s own expense”. A month ago, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, announced that two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, with intervals of 14 to 28 days, are required to be given. The price is 200 yuan for a single dose (bottle), with two doses totaling 400 yuan. It says more than one million people in Zhejiang have been vaccinated.
The Wuhan government lacks the money to charge 8,000 yuan for a single dose of vaccine
Mr. Zhao, a resident of Guangzhou, told THE STATION that some community workers offered free vaccines, but he dared not get them. A woman surnamed Chen, a community volunteer in Wuhan, told THE STATION that the local government charges 2,700 yuan for a single dose of the vaccine, which is divided into three doses: “2,700 yuan for a single dose. Our family first did not go to fight, second there is no place to fight. If I need an injection, I need to find a relationship. The Wuhan government is out of money now. Our leaders and well-connected people have already been vaccinated, and it’s free.”
Chen said an insider reminded her to wait and see how others reacted before making a decision: “And the insider told me not to do it and to wait. The doctor had told me to wait, so I decided to wait. They haven’t had a long clinical trial, so they told me not to.”
Ms. Chen says many residents in Wuhan want to get vaccinated but don’t have enough money, so they are waiting for local governments to cut vaccine prices.
Doctors get free vaccinations to worry about safety
Xie Lijuan, a senior executive at a British-owned company in Shanghai, told THE BBC that state media had treated the COVID-19 vaccine with caution: “There has been a little bit of coverage in China, not a lot of coverage. It may also be the safety of the vaccine, which is now being administered within China, by officials, and also by medical institutions. Listen to my sister, my sister is in the medical facility, she said the hospital asked them to sign up for the vaccine, but no one in the hospital dares to sign up, do not want to fight. Because the first vaccines don’t know how safe they are.”
People in Hong Kong will get free vaccinations as soon as next month
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said recently that procurement agreements have been reached or are nearing for three types of wuhan pneumonia vaccine, including those developed by Sinovac, a German pharmaceutical company, and Oxford University in Britain. These vaccines are provided free of charge by the SAR government and are enough for two doses per person. The first 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccine could arrive in Hong Kong as soon as next month, but people in Hong Kong cannot choose which vaccine to get, she added.
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