China’s elderly vaccine refuseniks pose obstacle for Xi Jinping
If Xi Jinping is to navigate an exit from the zero-Covid strategy of relentless lockdowns, mass testing and contact tracing, the Chinese president must overcome a steely bloc of resistance: tens of millions of elderly vaccine refuseniks.
Xi has been forced into a rare retreat after a drumbeat of youthful dissent over his draconian pandemic controls sparked unprecedented protests in more than 20 Chinese cities.
Standing in his way of an orderly exit are about 85mn people — one-third of the 267mn Chinese citizens aged over 60s — who have not received a third vaccine dose needed for a high level of protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant. Among those aged 80 and over, the under-protected rate surges to about 60 per cent, or 21mn people.
Also to blame is Beijing’s refusal to import foreign jabs with superior messenger RNA technology and silence from the very top of the Communist party about the importance of vaccines.
A Lancet study from Singapore published this month found individuals who received three doses of China’s inactivated virus vaccines, made by pharmaceutical groups Sinovac and state-owned Sinopharm, were nearly twice as likely to develop severe Covid as people who received three mRNA jabs. Those with the Chinese shots were also 50 per cent more likely to be hospitalised.
A 65-year-old man in Shanghai who asked not to be named said his reasoning for avoiding the vaccine had changed over the past three years. At first he was sceptical about its effectiveness, after the Chinese jabs were pushed through before research was available to the public. Later, he became afraid his immune system would be attacked by the vaccine. Now, he believes the virus is weaker than the effects of the vaccine itself.
“But once China starts significantly relaxing Covid restrictions, more people will have the incentive to get vaccinated because they will see case numbers surge,” he said.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for Global Health at the Council for Foreign Relations think-tank, noted that officials had quietly confirmed the country’s top leadership was vaccinated only in recent months.
A vaccine mandate announced in July was scrapped within days following a public backlash. Now, officials are trying a lighter touch. Chinese business publication Caixin reported last week that quotas for a vaccination drive targeting the elderly had been distributed to local governments.
Chen of Trivium said the targets would spur officials to offer incentives and rewards to win over seniors. “In China, targets are rarely missed, especially when local government officials’ career prospects are tied to fulfilling [them].”
But a provincial health official in the northern city of Shijiazhuang said “a lot of doubts” persisted because the vaccines did not prevent infection. “Lots of people who’ve gotten vaccinated are still catching Covid. How do you explain that to people?”
Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing and Eleanor Olcott in Hong Kong
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow
