Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech Germany.
One hundred million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer vaccine) jointly developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech Germany have arrived in mainland China. The news then spread on mainland social media platforms that the Pfizer vaccine had to be paid for at one’s own expense, while netizens said that they would pay for the Pfizer vaccine. The news was quickly blocked by the Chinese Communist Party’s webmaster.
On Tuesday (13), China’s Fosun Group announced that the first batch of Pfizer vaccines introduced by the company had arrived in China and undergone rigorous clinical application, and the data obtained showed that the vaccine had a 95 percent protection rate, and its effectiveness, safety and durability were fully consistent with the data published by Pfizer, the World Health Organization, the European Union Medicines Agency and other overseas agencies.
The news then circulated on WeChat and other online social platforms in mainland China. Some netizens broke the news that unlike domestic vaccines that can be administered for free, Pfizer vaccines must be paid for at one’s own expense. However, many Chinese netizens still said that life is the most important, safety is the most important, even if it costs money, they are willing to receive the Pfizer vaccine. Other netizens questioned whether the Pfizer vaccine is only available to the privileged class, and that ordinary people would not have the opportunity to receive it even if they were willing to pay for it.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Mr. Chen, a resident of Wuhan, also said he believed that most Chinese people would be willing to receive the Pfizer vaccine, and that the cost of the vaccine was secondary to the safety of their lives. He said, “If the vaccine is not safe and you can’t save your life, what’s the point of having money? That’s why the safety of the vaccine is most important.”
However, news of the arrival of the first Pfizer vaccine in China and the need for people to pay for their own vaccination spread through China’s online community for only a day before it was quickly removed and blocked by Communist Party webmasters on Wednesday.
Chinese medical professional Wang Qian told Radio Free Asia that all news of the Pfizer vaccine’s arrival in China had been removed from social media in mainland China, and even if someone tried to re-post the news, it was immediately deleted.
“The vaccine thing itself is quite sensitive. Right now in China, you don’t see objective and unbiased reporting about vaccines.” Wang Qian said, “The people can only see that people die abroad from vaccination, and there are also deaths in the country from vaccination, which they [the public] can’t see.”
Left: Related articles posted on WeChat were blocked. Right: News of the Pfizer vaccine arriving in China was blocked this Wednesday. (Web screenshot)
According to public information, as of April 13, Pfizer vaccines have been put into use in 72 countries, including 26 countries in the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, and Fosun Group is the sole agent for Pfizer vaccines in China.
The Chinese Communist Party’s official blocking of the Pfizer vaccine’s arrival in China so quickly and in such an unusual manner has raised more suspicions – what is the official intention of blocking the news? Is it because the foreign vaccine is more popular than the domestic vaccine and the Chinese Communist Party feels ashamed, or is it because the vaccine was never intended to be available to the general public? How will the Chinese authorities distribute the 100 million doses of Pfizer vaccine?
Chinese investigative journalist Wang Zhi’an tweeted Wednesday that if only a privileged few are able to receive the Pfizer vaccine, it could fuel the Chinese public’s distrust of domestic vaccines.
Earlier, U.S. media revealed that Gao Fu, director of the Communist Party’s CDC, said at an internal seminar on April 10 that Chinese authorities are considering “sequential vaccination” by optimizing vaccination procedures or using vaccines developed along different technical lines because of the “low efficacy” of domestic vaccines. The Chinese authorities are considering improving the effectiveness of domestic vaccination by optimizing vaccination procedures or “sequencing” vaccines developed using different technological lines.
According to a report by the Chinese media “First Financial”, the so-called “sequential vaccination” refers to the use of different variants of the same virus antigen to boost immunity. But this approach is still being validated, and no country has yet put this idea into practice.
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