China pushes vaccines as retreat from 'zero-COVID' turns messy

Tags

Top Highlights

• The push comes as the World Health Organisation also raised concerns that China's 1.4 billion population was not adequately vaccinated and the United States offered help in dealing with a surge in infections.

• For all its efforts to quell the virus since it erupted in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, China may now pay a price for shielding a population that lacks "herd immunity" and has low vaccination rates among the elderly, analysts said.

• China has reported just 5,235 COVID-related deaths so far, extremely low by global standards

• China, which has said around 90% of its population is vaccinated against COVID, has now decided to roll out the second booster shot for high-risk groups and elderly people over 60 years of age.

• The latest official data shows China administered 1.43 million COVID shots on Tuesday, well above rates in November of around 100,000-200,000 doses a day. In total, it has administered 3.45 billion shots.

• Beijing has been largely resistant to western vaccines and treatments, having relied on locally-made shots. Pfizer's (PFE.N) oral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid is one of the few foreign ones it has approved.