China domestic vaccination campaign roars ahead, now at four times peak U.S. daily rate
True to form for the world’s most populous nation, China is now administering eye-popping numbers of COVID-19 vaccinations. In a span of nine days, 100 million people in China recently received a shot.
After a surprisingly slow start earlier this year, China’s domestic COVID-19 vaccination program has finally kicked into high gear. And true to form for the world’s most populous nation and leading industrial powerhouse, the numbers are as eye-popping as you might expect:
- Almost 14 million people per day are getting a dose, Bloomberg reports, about four times faster than the daily rate of the U.S. at its peak of 3.38 million per day last month.
- In a span of nine days, 100 million people in China recently received a shot, Xinhua reports.
- China is on track to widely surpass the goal it set two months ago to vaccinate half a billion people by the end of June. More than half of the almost 400 million shots that China has administered to date were given in the past month, per Bloomberg.
What changed?
Most important, presumably, is supply — but there is limited public information on the exact capacity of China’s vaccine manufacturers.
Other factors could include:
- Increased urgency due to local COVID-19 outbreaks in Liaoning and Anhui provinces.
- More consumer incentives to get vaccinated: From laundry detergent to ice cream, a huge range of freebies are being offered in many Chinese cities as part of official efforts to get more people to vaccination sites.
- Increased priority on domestic shots: China’s domestic supply was strained earlier this year, partially due to generous export deals for foreign countries — China is exporting more vaccines than any other country, through a combination of donations and purchase agreements.
But China probably won’t reach herd immunity
China won’t have a majority of its 1.4 billion people vaccinated until later this year, and even then, the threshold for herd immunity against more contagious variants is now considered to be potentially upwards of 80 percent.
- If some Chinese vaccines are less effective than the mRNA vaccines that the U.S. is using — as China’s CDC director appeared to admit last month, and as an outbreak in partially Sinopharm-vaccinated Seychelles seems to confirm — then the threshold for community immunity would be even higher. The UAE announced today that it will offer a 6-month booster shot for Sinopharm recipients “amid concerns about an insufficient antibody response,” AP reports.
- But new outbreaks will be less alarming if much of the populace has at least partial protection. The vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech, another of the five that China is using in its vaccination program, has been shown to protect against virtually all severe disease where it has been deployed in Indonesia, Chile, and Brazil.
- More effective mRNA vaccines will likely come to China as soon as later this year. A late-stage trial for one Chinese-made mRNA shot will begin in Mexico later this month, and Fosun Pharma and BioNTech recently struck a $200 million deal to produce mRNA shots for the Chinese market.
For the world, vaccine diplomacy appears to be entering a new stage. But is Biden’s announcement of more international supply too little, too late for the U.S. to compete? See more:
- Biden to send 20 million U.S.-approved vaccines abroad by end of June / NBC News
“The 20 million doses of U.S.-approved shots are in addition to Biden’s previous commitment to give 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to other countries, meaning that 80 million doses are expected to be shared with the world within the next few weeks.” (China has already exported nearly 250 million doses worldwide, including nearly 20 million donated.) - ‘Where is the plan?’: Biden pressed on global vaccine strategy / Washington Post (paywall)
A report last week that there was significant “confusion over which agency is leading the effort to craft the country’s global vaccination strategy.” - U.S. fixation on China casts shadow over Biden vaccine pledge: Beijing / SCMP (paywall)
- Taiwan reports 240 new COVID-19 cases, in talks with U.S. for share of donated vaccine doses / SCMP (paywall)
- Western powers have lost the vaccine diplomacy battle / Economist Intelligence Unit
The EIU declared that China and Russia had already secured most of the reputational benefits available from vaccine diplomacy by the end of April.
