China promotes vaccination after the increase in COVID-19 infections in the country

By Brenda Goh and Albee Zhang

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 15 (Reuters) – China rushed Thursday to vaccinate its most vulnerable population in anticipation of waves of COVID-19 infections. Some analysts predict that the death toll will skyrocket after the easing of the strict controls that have kept the pandemic at bay for three years.

The pressure comes at a time when even the World Health Organization has expressed concern that 1.4 billion Chinese are not sufficiently vaccinated and the United States has offered to help China cope with a surge in vaccination. infections.

On Wednesday, Beijing began lifting tough checks on its “zero contagion” policy, scrapping testing requirements and easing quarantine rules that had caused anxiety among tens of millions of people and hit the world’s second-largest economy. .

The departure from President Xi Jinping’s typical coronavirus policy came after unprecedented widespread protests against it. However, WHO Emergencies Director Mike Ryan said COVID-19 infections were soaring in China long before the government’s decision to phase out its strict regime.

“Right now there are discussions that China has lifted restrictions and suddenly the disease is out of control,” Ryan said at a news conference in Geneva.

“The disease was spreading intensely because I think the control measures themselves weren’t stopping the disease.”

There are growing signs of chaos as China turns around, with long queues at clinics, high demand for medicines and buying hoards across the country.

A video posted online Wednesday showed several people, dressed in thick winter clothes, hooked up to IVs as they sat on stools on the street outside a clinic in central Hubei province. Reuters verified the location of the video.

For all its efforts to crack down on the virus since it broke out in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, China may now pay a price to protect a population lacking “herd immunity” and low vaccination rates among the elderly. , analysts say.

“Authorities have allowed cases in Beijing and other cities to spread to the point where the resumption of restrictions, testing and tracing would be largely ineffective in controlling the outbreaks,” Eurasia Group analysts said in a statement. notes Thursday.

“Over a million people could die from COVID-19 in the coming months.”

Other experts have put the potential number of victims at more than 2 million. China has so far reported just 5,235 COVID-19-related deaths, an extremely low number by global levels.

Chinese stock markets and its currency, the yuan, fell on Thursday on concerns about the spread of the virus.

China reported 2,000 new symptomatic COVID-19 infections for Dec. 14, up from 2,291 a day earlier. The official figures, however, have become a less reliable guide as testing has decreased. Also, it stopped reporting asymptomatic figures on Wednesday.

CONCERN FOR THE ELDERLY

China, which has said about 90% of its population is vaccinated, announced Wednesday it would roll out the second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for high-risk groups and the elderly over the age of 60.

National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said Wednesday that it was necessary to speed up the promotion of vaccination, in comments collected by state media.

The latest official data shows China administered 1.43 million vaccines on Tuesday, well above November’s rates of around 100,000-200,000 daily doses. In total, it has administered 3,450 million vaccines.

However, citing low vaccination rates among the elderly, a Shanghai nursing home said Wednesday it was banning non-essential visits and deliveries, as well as the stockpiling of medicines, test kits and protective gear.

“We are puzzling over how to ensure the safety of your grandparents,” residence Yuepu Tianyi wrote in a letter posted on her official WeChat account.

Beijing has largely resisted Western vaccines and treatments and has relied on locally produced vaccines.

Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid is one of the few foreign drugs it has approved.

The treatment, however, has only been available in hospitals for high-risk patients, but signs have emerged in recent days that it may soon be more widely available. Shares of China Meheco Group Co Ltd rose after announcing a deal Wednesday to import the treatment from the U.S. drugmaker.

ECONOMIC CONFERENCE

As the virus spreads, President Xi, his ruling Politburo and senior government officials have launched a two-day meeting to map out a recovery for China’s battered economy, according to sources familiar with the matter.

According to the sources, leaders are likely to craft more stimulus measures and discuss growth targets at the annual Central Economic Work Conference held behind closed doors in Beijing. The official Xinhua News Agency said plans would be made to boost domestic consumption and investment.

China’s economy lost momentum in November as industrial production growth slowed and retail sales continued to decline, missing forecasts and posting the worst results since May, data showed on Thursday.

Economists estimate that China’s growth has slowed to about 3% this year, marking one of the country’s worst performances in nearly half a century.

(Reporting by Albee Zhang, Liz Lee and Bernard Orr in Beijing, Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Stella Qiu in Sydney; Screenplay by John Geddie; Editing in Spanish by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)