DThe state and party leadership in China has announced that all of its members have been vaccinated against the corona virus with a Chinese vaccine. “It shows the leaders’ confidence in China’s vaccines,” deputy head of the National Health Commission Zeng Yixin said at a news conference on Saturday. He did not name the vaccinated or the vaccines by name. The disclosure is unusual in that information about the health of political leaders is usually treated as state secrets.
The move is obviously intended to boost public confidence in vaccines. There are reservations, especially among older people. 62 percent of those over eighty are not yet boosted, as the health commission announced on Saturday. This makes it difficult for the country to turn away from the economically costly zero-Covid strategy. If it opens, high death rates are expected. Vaccination data for this age group has been published for the first time in months.
Undermining trust through lack of transparency
The reports on the vaccination status of the political leaders could be a sign that the government wants to step up the vaccination campaign. Since March, the rate of vaccination had slowed dramatically, from almost six million doses a day to just 760,000 units a day. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that a large part of the medical staff was deployed for millions of PCR tests in order to stop the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the virus. On the other hand, there was apparently a lack of political signals from state and party leader Xi Jinping for a gradual departure from his zero-Covid strategy.
The capital Beijing had recently failed in an attempt to introduce privileges for the vaccinated in order to increase the pressure on the unvaccinated. The move met with resistance from the population and the central government. There are several reasons why parts of the population are not willing to be vaccinated. The number of corona infections is so low that many do not see the need for vaccination. There is no timetable for an opening and advantages for vaccinated people.
Many doctors advise older people not to be vaccinated because there is too little clinical data on the effectiveness of vaccines in this age group. Confidence in vaccines has been undermined by a lack of transparency and the government’s blocking of imports of foreign vaccines, raising doubts. The Vaccination Commission contradicted the widespread view on Saturday that inactivated vaccines are an outdated technology. In addition, communication about Corona is still strongly ideological.
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