Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Why is China keeping quiet about its vaccine programme?

(Getty images)

While Britain is the first country in the world to approve a vaccine, it is not the first to start vaccinating people. A million people in China have already been inoculated with Sinopharm and Sinovac jabs. The vaccines, however, have not completed phase three trials, which assess potential side effects. In other words, they have not yet been granted regulatory approval. Could this be the reason that Beijing – never usually shy when it comes to good news – is keeping quiet?

The vaccinations first started in July, when a legal provision for ‘emergency vaccinations’, based on the WHO’s response to Ebola, was introduced. Frontline workers in health, transport and retail – and those who plan to travel abroad for work – were the first to be offered jabs. Foreign travel may not be what the WHO had in mind as an emergency, but the Chinese government’s thinking is simple: while China declares itself Covid-free, the rest of the world is still in a virus nightmare (an impression aided by state media’s avid coverage). For those who have to venture out, the Chinese communist party says: we have your back.

Zhejiang is the first province in the country to have rolled out the as-yet unapproved vaccines (though Hunan seeks to follow, possibly by the end of the year). In much of the region, you have to be a local resident in order to apply, but the city of Yiwu is an exception, allowing out-of-towners to be vaccinated too. This has made the one million strong city (tiny by Chinese standards) an unlikely millennial hotspot and a social media phenomenon. Young, middle-class Chinese who study abroad are flocking there to seek out the vaccine.

On RED, an Instagram-like platform with 300 million registered users (of which 70 per cent are under 30), people are sharing tips and anecdotes about the vaccines.

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