With the onslaught of Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19), countries are expecting a vaccine to be in place as soon as possible to achieve herd immunity. The Washington Post pointed out on the 29th that China was leading the way in vaccine development and vaccination, but has been overtaken by Western countries in the progress of domestic herd immunization due to an excessive focus on “vaccine diplomacy”.
According to the report, China was the first country to be hit by the new coronavirus, and it also got ahead of the West by vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people in the country by September of last year. However, China is more focused on exporting vaccines than the West, which hopes to reach a domestic herd immunization of at least 70% of the population, which could result in China not reaching a herd immunization this year and facing a protracted battle with repeated outbreaks.
China has vaccinated 23 million people as of the 27th, and is expected to vaccinate 50 million key workers in health care, transportation, catering and civil service by the middle of next month, but the number represents less than 4% of China’s 1.4 billion population.
Chinese officials expect to produce 70% of the vaccine needed by the end of this year for the total domestic population, and to achieve domestic mass immunization, all of the nearly 2 billion doses of vaccine expected to be produced must be made available for domestic use, but China has pledged to give up to 500 million doses of vaccine to other countries, and has so far exported millions of doses to developing countries such as Turkey, Chile and Serbia, with hundreds of millions more in the pipeline, including the 60 million doses finalized with Chile. The 60 million doses agreed with Chile will have to be delivered over several years.
Zhang Yuntao, a senior cadre at state-run China National Pharmaceutical Group, one of China’s two major vaccine makers, told Chinese media this month that it might take “one to two years” for the company to vaccinate 500 million people in the country. to vaccinate 500 million people in the country, or 36 percent of the total population. Beijing officials have been tight-lipped about the scheduled timeline for domestic herd immunization and the distribution of domestic and foreign demand for domestic vaccines.
WaPo notes that Beijing’s “vaccine diplomacy” has raised concerns among competitors, but Beijing insists it will not stockpile vaccines like rich countries, but will instead launch a humanitarian relief effort.
Notably, compared to Pfizer’s and Modena’s vaccines, which both have about 95 percent protection, China National Pharmaceutical Group’s vaccine is only 79 percent, and another Kexing Biologicals vaccine has been shown to be only slightly more than 50 percent effective in large clinical trials in Brazil, presenting another major challenge for China.
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