Edmonton Journal ePaper

China urged to use West's vaccines as daily infections reach records

Millions at risk as domestic jabs less effective

SAMUEL LOVETT

China is being urged to use the West's vaccines to better protect its people, allowing it to gradually phase out the draconian restrictions of the government's ZERO-COVID policy.

As daily infections reach record levels and analysis shows that millions of unprotected people could die if ZERO-COVID is abandoned, officials and health experts have encouraged China to embrace the Western approach to vaccination.

The chief spokesman for the German government suggested that China should use the MRNA vaccines produced by Biontech/pfizer and Moderna, which offered high levels of protection and had allowed most countries outside of east Asia to drop all coronavirus restrictions.

“Europe and Germany have had very good experience with administering MRNA vaccinations,” Steffen Hebestreit told a press briefing. He added that Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, had “made this clear” to Chinese officials during a visit to the country.

China is instead continuing to rely on home-produced vaccines, which are based on older technology and do not offer the same protection against severe disease as the West's COVID jabs.

Discussions have been held between German and Chinese officials about sharing vaccine technology, but it has only been agreed to offer the MRNA jab made by Pfizer and Biontech, based in Mainz, to Germans living in China.

The Chinese are developing their own MRNA vaccines but have yet to roll them out to the public. One China-made MRNA vaccine, designed by Walvax, was approved for use in Indonesia in late September but has not been licensed within China itself.

Prof Yanzhong Huang, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Indonesia's approval of the Walvax jab should have been “an opportunity to brag about but ... they're not being enthusiastic about it.”

Xi Chen, an associate professor at Yale University, said the West's vaccines offered “a major solution” to China's COVID woes. Health experts say ZERO-COVID is unlikely to end until vaccine uptake among China's elderly improves.

Data from early November show that 66 per cent of over-80s are double-jabbed, while only 68 per cent of over-60s have been boosted.

In light of these gaps, between 1.3 and 2.1 million lives could be at risk if China lifts its ZERO-COVID policy, according to research from Airfinity, a U.k.-based data analysis firm.

Efforts are underway to increase coverage but Chen said: “It's unlikely things will get better for the next half of the new year.”

WORLD

en-ca

2022-11-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edmontonjournal.pressreader.com/article/281762748273103

Postmedia