Chile has one of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the world, even higher than developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and almost all of Europe, but the cases of coronavirus do not fall.
Instead, Chile is experiencing a huge increase in infections, with new daily cases having more than doubled in the past two months. The disconnection between vaccinations and infections may amount to the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the Chinese vaccine used in the country.
Chile administered 69 doses per 100 people of COVID-19 vaccines, of which 93% came from China. Those Chinese doses are mainly the CoronaVac vaccine from the Chinese firm Sinovac.
Chile, with one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, is struggling with a brutal Covid boom and is forcing it to close and postpone the election. Chile offers a warning story about confidence in Chinese vaccinations, which, according to China’s CDC chief, “do not have very high protection rates.”
– Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) 20 April 2021
Questions have been asked about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines since the day they were developed. Trials have come to varied conclusions about how much it works: researchers in Turkey found an efficiency rate of 83%, while others in Brazil reported about 50% of the effectiveness.
According to a University of Chile, the CoronaVac vaccine is 56.5% effective two weeks after the second dose, drastically lower than the three vaccines approved for use in the United States, which are almost 100% effective against serious diseases and prevent the death of COVID. 19. (RELATED: Less than 0.01% of Vaccinated Americans Allegedly Contracted Later COVID-19)
More importantly, the study found that the vaccine was only 3% effective after the first dose was given. This is a critical difference from Western developed vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna, which offer significant protection even when the second dose has not yet been given.
This could very well be the stumbling block in Chile’s pandemic armor. 40% of Chileans, according to CNN, received at least one vaccine dose, but less than 30% were fully vaccinated.
China has backed down against concerns about the efficacy of its vaccines, but final, comprehensive trial data for CoronaVac has not been made public. Earlier in April, Chinese CDC director Gao Fu conceded that his country’s vaccines were not working as well as they should have, before retrieving them later: do not have.”
The lack of clarity on the question of whether their vaccines do work did not deter the Chinese Communist Party from taking a victory round for their efforts to vaccinate the world. Both China and Russia have waged an aggressive campaign of vaccine diplomacy, sending millions of doses to developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia that have received little or no assistance from Western powers. (RELATED: China Offers to Vaccinate All Olympic Athletes Before Beijing, Tokyo Games)
The World Health Organization has gone so far as to praise China for its efforts, while exciting the US and others who have been at the forefront of getting their own population vaccinated first.