TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China’s success in controlling the coronavirus outbreak has led to a population that has seemed almost reluctant to be vaccinated. It is thus accelerating its vaccination campaign by offering incentives – free eggs, shopping vouchers and discounts on groceries and merchandise – to those who get a chance.
After a slow start, China now gives millions of shots a day. On March 26 alone, it fired 6.1 million shots. A top government doctor, Zhong Nanshan, announced a June target to vaccinate 560 million of the country’s 1.4 billion people.
The challenge lies in part in the sheer scale of the effort and the need to convince a population that currently feels safe from infections.
When patients first showed up at hospitals in Wuhan at the end of 2019 with fever, cough and breathing problems, the government closed the city and others in Hubei province for more than two months from January 2020. Wuhan later became known as the epicenter of the outbreak.
Since then, China has controlled the virus through strict border controls and rapid closures when new outbreaks appear. People can eat out in restaurants and the risk of infection is low, and many people do not seem to be in a hurry to get the vaccine.
“I think everyone has a sense of security and comfort, and there is no great rush to be vaccinated unless you are asked to do so,” said Helen Chen, a healthcare specialist at a market research firm in Shanghai. .
But China also wants to open up as the world wants to return to normalcy before pandemic and Beijing is ready to welcome tens of thousands of visitors to host the February 2022 Winter Olympics. While successful with fast connections and a robust contact tracking system smartphones, the government is also weighing the measures in balance with an eventual return to normalcy.
For now, in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, the government mostly relies on persistent messages and free messages to convince people to be vaccinated.
Shopping malls offered points at stores or coupons. A temple in Beijing offers free admission to anyone who provides proof of vaccination. Shanghai uses buses in its campaign to set up mobile vaccination points.
And then there are the free eggs.
“Good news. As of today, residents 60 years and older who received their first shot are eligible for five ‘jin’ (2.5 kilograms or 5 1/2 pounds) eggs. First come, first serve,” said a poster of a city center in Beijing said.
Wang Feng was too young for the eggs of the clinic, but the 25-year-old chef said he got the vaccine anyway because he could not go to work without it.
“I thought if it works, it might as well,” he added.
Some people have expressed doubts about how good the existing vaccines are, whether or not Chinese, given how quickly they have been developed.
“I do not think such an effective vaccine can be made so quickly,” said Amy Lu, who works at a university in Shanghai.
The five vaccines currently used in China have an efficacy range of 50.7% to 79.3%, based on what the companies said. This does not mean that they have no value – most experts believe that anything above 50% is useful in keeping the pandemic under control, along with preventing hospitalizations and deaths.
“Even if everyone gets two doses, you can not achieve herd immunity.” says Wang Chenguang, a former professor at Beijing Union Medical College and an immunology expert. Herd immunity occurs when enough of the population has immunity, whether from vaccinations or past infections, to stop the uncontrolled spread of an infectious disease.
China may need to vaccinate at least 1 billion people to achieve this, Wang Huaqing, a top immunology official at China’s Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview with state media this week. In early April, about 34 million people received two shots and about 65 million received one dose.
Gao Fu, head of the CDC, said last weekend that China was considering different strategies such as mixing different vaccines to increase effectiveness. External experts say China could eventually use other, more effective vaccines, such as the Pfizer or Moderna shots.
“The best thing to do is to allow the use of other better vaccines and make them available to the Chinese people, but this is probably very politically challenging,” said Jin Dong-yan, a vaccine expert at the University. of Hong, said. Kong’s medical school.
Chinese drugmaker Fosun Pharmaceutical Group has partnered with German BioNTech to sell the Pfizer vaccine in China. However, it is only approved in Hong Kong and Macao, special areas in China with their own regulatory agencies. A clinical trial for approval on the mainland is underway.
Vaccination is supposed to be voluntary, but diligent efforts by some local governments and companies have led health officials to issue a warning against forced vaccinations this week.
A hospital in Danzhou on the southern island of Hainan has apologized after issuing a notice to staff: “Those who are not vaccinated can be fired. ‘
In Zhejiang Province, an April 2 announcement said that all government departments, Communist Party cadres and people working at universities should take the lead in taking shots.
The national government has also vaccinated all residents of Ruili, a border town with Myanmar, due to a recent outbreak.
Getting vaccinated can also mean avoiding the more difficult obstacles some local institutions have set up in the name of pandemic control.
Bright Li, a Beijing student, said he had been vaccinated so he would no longer need approval to leave campus. Although barely enforced, Li became concerned after the university put up posters in which a student who left campus without permission last year was publicly convicted after the student went to an area with a confirmed COVID-19 case has gone.
The vaccination system has experienced widespread shortages and delays.
In Haikou, the capital of Hainan, health authorities have issued a temporary stay to give a second shot to those who were not involved in two major upcoming events, due to a relative disadvantage of the vaccine. Shortages have also been reported in two southern cities, Foshan in Guangdong province and Xiamen port in Fujian province.
China’s vaccine manufacturers have expanded their production capacity, and health officials believe they can confidently comply by the end of the year.
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Associated Press video producer Olivia Zhang in Beijing, researcher Chen Si in Shanghai and science writer Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi contributed to this report.