The campaign to boost vaccination against Covid-19 in China is waning in intensity as medical staff are redirected to mass testing, while coronavirus cases increase across the country.
Relatively low vaccination rates will leave tens of millions of Chinese vulnerable to Covid if the government’s harsh “Covid Zero” policy fails to contain the omicron variant.
In the last week of March, China gave 770,000 third-dose vaccines a day to people over 60 after outbreaks in Shanghai and Jilin. But that number dropped to 590,000 in mid-April, according to data released by the country’s health department.
Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the drop in daily inoculation rates reflected the deep distrust of vaccines among elderly Chinese. “The last unvaccinated group is always the hardest to reach and convince to get the vaccine,” Jin said.
If China continues inoculation at this rate, it will take until September for 90% of the elderly population to complete the three-dose vaccination course, according to an analysis by the Financial Times.
Authorities on the Chinese mainland resorted to strict lockdown measures to prevent a repeat of scenes from Hong Kong when a wave of cases of the omicron variant in February caused a spike in deaths of unvaccinated seniors.
Beijing announced on Tuesday that nearly 20 million residents would have to undergo three rounds of testing by Saturday, after 33 cases were reported that day. But some health experts are concerned that government policies could hamper vaccination campaigns or even allow community spread of the virus.
“In Shanghai, medical resources were reallocated to temporary hospitals and PCR testing, which brought vaccination to a sudden stop in the city,” Jin said.
Just over 40% of Chinese people over 60, or 109 million people, are undervaccinated, meaning they have received less than three doses of the country-produced Sinovac or Sinopharm vaccines needed to achieve high levels of protection against the omicron variant. That number rises to over 60% in Shanghai.
A city doctor, who spoke to the Financial Times on condition of anonymity, said frontline workers are struggling with an increased workload after many employees were re-directed to administer tests across the city.
Chinese authorities have implemented localized or mass testing across the city whenever an outbreak occurred during the pandemic. This strategy contributed to combating the spread of the virus, including the delta variant in Shanghai and Xi’an, in late 2021.
But the effectiveness of that strategy is being reviewed after Shanghai entered its fourth week of general lockdown. There is no indication of when restrictions on human movement, which have made it difficult for residents of the country’s most populous city to obtain food and medical supplies, will end.
“The same measures that worked for delta don’t work for omicron,” Jin said, explaining that it is “very difficult” to manage contact tracing or carry out epidemiological investigations on the latter variant because of its high transmissibility.
Experts have warned that the omicron may be spreading during mass testing, and many Shanghai residents have refused to comply with testing orders.
Jin said fears of community transmission as Hong Kongers queued for a PCR test were among the main reasons health officials in mainland China decided to cancel a planned city-wide test in March.
But mainland China is sticking to that approach.
The capital braces for a possible Shanghai-style lockdown. Residents are emptying supermarket shelves after a spate of cases emerged over the weekend, raising concern that the omicron has been spreading through the city for days undetected.
