A health worker prepares to administer the CoronaVac vaccine to residents at a vaccination center in Santiago, Chile, March 16, 2021.
The South American country of Chile has introduced the CoronaVac vaccine since December of last year, and a third of its population has already received their first dose. However, the number of new confirmed cases in the country has increased by nearly 30 percent, raising questions about the effectiveness of the CoronaVac vaccine.
According to a study by the vaccine data website Our World In Data, the number of new confirmed cases per day in Chile rose from nearly 4,000 in early February to 5,000 this month, an increase of nearly 30 percent, and in the capital city of Santiago, an increase of 44 percent.
Sebastian Ugarte, head of the intensive care unit at the local hospital, told Al Jazeera that the number of beds in the intensive care unit has doubled, but the current utilization rate is still full. A number of elderly people over 70 years old have died after receiving the Coxin vaccine. The number of young, seriously ill patients has also shown an upward trend recently.
Chile, with a total population of about 18 million, has now vaccinated more than 33% of its population, making it the country with the highest vaccination rate in the world. Nearly 92 percent of these vaccinations are administered by China’s Kexing vaccine and the rest by Pfizer. Just last month, Chile received nearly 4 million doses of the Coxin vaccine.
In addition, Hong Kong also began mass vaccination with the Coxin vaccine on Feb. 26. But as of March 14, at least seven people were known to have died after receiving the vaccine. And according to the Phase I summary report released by the Hong Kong Department of Health for vaccine safety surveillance, as of March 7, there were 71 reports of vaccine abnormalities in Hong Kong, of which the Coxin vaccine accounted for 69; and globally, as of March 8, at least 56 people had died after receiving the Coxin vaccine.
In addition to the Kexing vaccine, experts have expressed distrust of the Chinese Communist Party‘s domestic vaccines as a whole. Even mainland professionals have said outright that Chinese vaccines are “the most unsafe vaccines in the world.
On Dec. 30 of last year, the inactivated vaccine developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical group China Bio was approved by the Chinese Communist Party authorities for marketing. A few days later, on Jan. 5, Chinese vaccine expert Tao Lina posted on WeChat an electronic version of the vaccine’s instructions, mentioning as many as 73 side effects after vaccination.
Peruvian media recently disclosed that the phase III clinical trial of China National Pharmaceutical Group’s Wuhan vaccine in that country resulted in a 33 percent efficiency rate, while the efficiency rate of China National Pharmaceutical’s Beijing vaccine was only 11.5 percent.
Recently, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing is willing to provide domestic vaccines for the participants of the Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. As soon as the words left his mouth, he was vetoed by Japan, the host of the Eastern Olympic Games. The Australian Olympic Committee also said that it would “not consider at all” a Chinese-made vaccine.
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