Amazing speed of COVID-19 vaccine injection in China, 5 days injecting 100 million doses

Although slow at first, China is implementing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign at a speed that no other country can keep up.

People wait for their turn to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in Beijing. Photo: AP According to CNBC, within just 5 days of May, China injected 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to its people. Health officials hope to be able to vaccinate 80% of its 1.4 billion population by the end of 2021. As of June 2, China has injected a total of over 704 million doses of vaccine, of which half were administered in May. The total number of doses of COVID-19 vaccine that China has given to the population accounts for about one-third in one. ,9 billion doses of vaccine are distributed globally. The call to vaccinate is from all walks of life. Companies inject workers, schools urge students and teachers to immunize, local authorities urge people to vaccinate. According to Our World in Data, in 7 days, China is injecting an average of 19 million doses per day. With a population a quarter of China’s, the US only injected 3.4 million doses / day in April – when the vaccination campaign was operating at full speed. A medical worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Shanghai, China. Photo: THX/VNA On May 30, Zhong Nanshan, the head of an expert group of the National Health Commission of China, said that 40% of the Chinese population has been vaccinated with at least one dose, and the government’s goal is to fully immunize all patients. this number at the end of June. In the capital Beijing, 87% of people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccination in Beijing is easy because there are hundreds of vaccination service points throughout the city. Vaccination buses are parked right in crowded areas such as city centers and commercial centers. However, vaccination in other areas is not as easy as in the capital. Ms. Zhou Hongxia, a resident of Lanzhou, Gansu province, said: “I started waiting in line for the injection at 9am and didn’t get the injection until 6pm. It’s tiring. When I returned, there were still people waiting.” Ms. Zhou’s husband couldn’t even schedule a vaccination. On May 31, government officials said they were working to ensure the supply of COVID-19 vaccine is distributed more evenly. Not only focusing on inoculating people in the country, China also injects its citizens abroad when donating vaccines to Thailand, part of which is used to vaccinate the Chinese before giving them to Thai people. Globally, China has injected more than 500,000 citizens abroad. Before the domestic vaccination campaign accelerated in recent weeks, many Chinese people were in no hurry to get vaccinated because China had almost no cases in the community thanks to tight border controls and mandatory isolation. Recently, China has appeared many small clusters of infection and is suppressing the cluster in Guangzhou. According to analysts, despite the uneven distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, Chinese manufacturers have hardly had problems with the scale of production. Both companies that produce most of the COVID-19 vaccines being used in China, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have drastically increased production, built new factories and converted existing factories to produce COVID-19 vaccines. . Vaccines of Sinovac Biotech (China) at a vaccination center in Bangkok, Thailand on May 12, 2021. Photo: THX/VNA Vaccines from Sinovac and one from Sinopharm have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. “Where in the world can match China in terms of construction speed? How long does it take China to build field hospitals? Just a few days.” Sinovac said it has doubled production capacity to 2 billion doses/year, while Sinopharm said it can produce 3 billion doses/year. From the beginning of the year to the end of May, Sinovac produced 540 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Government support is crucial for vaccine manufacturers at every stage. Sinopharm said that right from the start of the vaccine research, it had borrowed a laboratory at a government research center. Chinese vaccine companies largely do not depend on imported products in the production process, so the scenario of shortage of raw materials and ingredients like the Serum Institute in India should be avoided. As of June 4, China had 91,194 cases of COVID-19, of which 4,636 died.