Refrigerated containers with supplies to produce China's Sinovac vaccines against the coronavirus disease arrive at Sao Paulo International Airport in Guarulhos, Brazil, April 19, 2021. The banner reads "Brazil's vaccine.
TAIPEI - After exporting COVID-19 vaccines to almost 70 countries, China is gearing up to push for its own vaccine passport to ease entry to foreigners and foreign residents of China inoculated with China-made vaccines.
Beijing hopes the vaccine passport will be an incentive for businesspeople, including Taiwanese citizens who travel frequently to and from China, to get Beijing-approved jabs. But many eligible for the program worry about the lower efficacy of Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines compared with that of vaccines made outside China, and they feel pressured to use Chinese vaccines to obtain entry to China.
The Sinovac vaccine's efficacy rate is slightly higher than 50%, while the Sinopharm vaccine's efficacy rate is 79%, far lower than that of Moderna, Pfizer and even the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine, all of which are above 90%, according to a Bloomberg report citing experimental data from researchers outside China. China launched full-scale registration of China-made vaccines for foreigners in Beijing and Shanghai at the end of March.
Before the current push, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had announced as of March 15 that further "visa facilitation" would be provided to foreign nationals inoculated with China-made vaccines. However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at that day's press briefing that visitors to China would still need to have negative results from both nucleic acid tests and serology tests before boarding a flight to China. After entering China, the visitors would be required to check in for a two-week quarantine at a government-designated hotel at their own expense.
Zhao also said that China is willing to undertake mutual recognition of vaccinations with other countries. But he declined to comment on whether China would consider accepting and facilitating the WHO-approved Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines in the future. Zhao did not mention the Moderna vaccine.
In an interview with VOA Mandarin, Lo Chun-hsuan, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Medical Association, said that as a major exporter of vaccines, China has a responsibility to make clear the safety and efficacy of its vaccines and to produce empirical clinical data, including laboratory data from phase III, for scientific certification
Lo said China should neither politicize its epidemic prevention efforts nor block other countries' highly effective vaccines to promote its own vaccines or vaccine nationalism.
He said that if the same 70 countries that have imported vaccines from China increase their vaccination rates, it may not help prevent the disease and instead may lead to variants of the virus due to the ineffectiveness of the Chinese-made vaccines.
Lo said, "There are two things to think about, the first is that mass vaccination will cause the variant virus to spread because the virus is not killed under immune pressure. It's like taking a bottle of insecticide and spraying cockroaches, but the bugs are not killed; instead, they become more resistant to the poison. Less-powerful immune pressure will generate more variants of the virus. (Second), these populous countries will in the future become some of the most difficult regions in the world to prevent COVID-19."
Words In This Article
gear up - v. to prepare / to get ready for something
inoculate - v. to inject materials into a body to increase resistance to diseases / viruses
frequently - adv. often, many times
efficacy - n. effectiveness, the capacity to achieve a desired effect
spokesman - n. a person who speaks for a group, a public speaker for a company / group
board a flight - v. to get on a plane
be willing to - v. to do something intentionally
facilitate - v. to make it easier, to assist a progress
variant - adj. tending to change or alter
Comprehension Quiz
1. Why does China allow vaccinated people to travle into China?
2. What are the problems with China's Sinovac and Sinopharm?
3. Are Chinese government fond of foreign vaccine like Pfizer? Why do you think they do / don't?
4. If you would travel to China, what is the process you have to go through?
5. Summarize a main point of this article in one sentence.
