Unlike their Western competitors, the Chinese companies have not disclosed data from late-stage clinical trials that shows vaccine efficacy, and regulators in China have not officially approved them
A local resident receives a Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital on December 26, 2020 in Hefei, Anhui Province of China.
Image: VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Hospitals all over China have almost everything necessary for a mass vaccination drive: Millions of doses. Refrigerators to store them. Health care workers trained to administer them.
Everything, that is, except proof that any of their vaccines work.
Unlike their Western competitors, the Chinese companies have not disclosed data from late-stage clinical trials that would show whether their vaccines are effective, and regulators in China have not officially approved them.
That has not deterred local governments across the country, which have begun an ambitious vaccination campaign. The goal is to inoculate 50 million people — roughly the population of Colombia — by the middle of February, before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel.
China, where the virus first emerged a year ago, is going to great — and scientifically unorthodox — lengths to prevent a resurgence of the outbreak. While Beijing has not officially announced the vaccine target, the government has signaled the rollout will be managed in much the same way as the outbreak, through a top-down approach that can mobilize thousands of workers to produce, ship and administer the shots. Local officials were told that the drive was a “political mission.”
©2019 New York Times News Service