Chinese leader Xi Jinping is not ready to allow western vaccines – despite protests against the restrictive corona policy and the fact that the effectiveness of local Chinese vaccines is not as effective as that of western ones according to some studies.
A US official told Reuters: “It seems pretty far-fetched that China would give the green light to western vaccines at this point. It’s a matter of national pride, and they’d have to swallow a lot of that if they went that route.”
“We see no threat to stability with the protests right now, regime change or anything like that,” US Secret Service Director Avril Haines said at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.
Protests against strict lockdowns
According to an analysis by the bank Goldman Sachs, for example, the Chinese leadership is currently trying to minimize the economic and social effects of its policies. Last weekend there were protests in many cities in China against the strict interpretation of the zero-Covid policy given by President Xi Jinping.
This is based in particular on comparatively long, strict lockdowns. However, this is slowing down the world’s second largest economy, and the growth expected for this year is likely to be one of the weakest in almost half a century.
In the course of the protests, the Chinese government announced that it would increase the pace of corona vaccinations. In particular, the over 80-year-olds should be immunized. It was advertised in Chinese state media on Sunday.
The number of new infections in China continued to fall on Sunday, but this could also be due to the lower number of tests. Authorities reported 31,824 new cases, down from 32,827 on Saturday. The highest number of new infections within a year since the outbreak of the pandemic was just over 40,000 a few days ago.
Two other people died in connection with the virus. The – official – number of deaths has risen to 5,235 since the outbreak of the pandemic. Despite the easing, experts assume that a fundamental departure from China’s zero-Covid policy cannot be expected before March.
What experts say about the Chinese vaccines
Vaccines are likely to play a crucial role in China’s road out of the Covid-19 pandemic – but should it be Western rather than Chinese preparations, as some experts are suggesting? That’s not an easy question to answer.
“The bottom line is that one can say with certainty that, according to study data, the mRNA vaccines are more efficient than the Chinese preparations when it comes to avoiding severe Covid 19 courses,” said Sebastian Ulbert, Head of the Vaccines and Infection Models Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell therapy and immunology in Leipzig. “But that does not mean that the vaccines there are completely failing. I therefore consider the very harsh criticism of China’s vaccines, which is sometimes heard from the USA and Europe, to be inappropriate.”
“Until the advent of Omikron, one could say that the Chinese vaccines work and initially offer sufficient protection against serious illness,” said Carsten Watzl, Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology. In total, China has approved ten Covid-19 vaccines. “These include two traditional inactivated vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm. This means that they work in the classic way with dead viruses, as we know from flu vaccinations.”
The crucial difference between mRNA vaccination and dead vaccines
In dealing with this material, the immune system forms antibodies after the vaccination. However, their levels in the blood dropped again very quickly. According to the immunologist, the decisive difference between mRNA vaccination and dead vaccines is that in mRNA vaccination, the blueprint for parts of the virus is introduced into human cells, which then produce these virus parts as in a real infection.
“In dead vaccines, virus components are outside of our cells. Accordingly, the immune system also reacts differently to the vaccines.” In both cases, specific antibodies would be formed, but the mRNA vaccines stimulated the T cells more, which are important for longer-lasting protection against a severe course, says Watzl.
Too few booster shots, too few recovered: Why China can’t let the virus run
The vaccine technologies previously used in China actually required more frequent revaccination, says the immunologist. For example, regular updates like we do every autumn with the flu vaccination. Even with mRNA vaccines, Omikron made it clear that three vaccine doses are needed for longer-lasting protection, Watzl recalls.
“In China, however, far fewer people than here have received a booster vaccination. That is why the country cannot let the virus run its course.” In addition to the problem that many people are not optimally protected against vaccinations in China, strict measures mean that there are far fewer people who have recovered in the population than here.
In this country, many people now have a so-called hybrid immunity, in the combination of vaccinations and infection. The British medical professor Paul Hunter (University of East Anglia) pointed out bad timing: Due to the decreasing vaccination protection, the greatest benefit of China’s vaccination campaign has probably fizzled out in the meantime, because the zero-Covid strategy was continued afterwards.
In view of the data from Brazil, Watzl considers it possible and advisable for China to use mRNA vaccines as a booster. For the situation in Germany, the Standing Vaccination Committee (Stiko) had recommended that people with a primary immunization with vaccines from Sinovac or Sinopharm should receive an mRNA booster. This leads to good vaccination protection that is “comparable to that after a 3-time mRNA vaccination”.
Main problem: The large vaccination gaps among older people in China
“Ultimately, the main problem in China does not seem to be the vaccine used, but the apparently large vaccination gaps, especially among the elderly,” said Ulbert. He refers to a study from Hong Kong that showed that after three doses of vaccine, there was almost no difference between the mRNA vaccine and the Chinese preparation.
“The question of the duration of protection provided by both types of vaccines remains open here, but these data suggest that for the situation in China it does not matter whether the vaccine is boosted with an mRNA vaccine or one’s own preparation. The main thing is that more people get a third dose.”
A comparative assessment of the effectiveness of vaccines in a pandemic is fundamentally very complex, said Ulbert. “As a rule, a single study cannot provide the answer, but you have to see it in the larger context.” It is not just the values for vaccine effectiveness that matter.
Practical aspects are also important, for example the production price or storage in the refrigerator. One should not forget that China has been able to supply vaccines to some countries for which mRNA vaccines were initially inaccessible, for example in South America.
China wants to step up the vaccination campaign, especially among the elderly population. For fear of side effects, older people in the country of 1.4 billion people have so far been vaccinated less frequently. Only about 40 percent of people over the age of 80 received a booster injection. (Reuters/dpa)
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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