China’s CDC scientists urge Beijing to step up vaccinations, return to normalcy

China still following “zero-COVID” strategy with resources diverted from vaccinations to mass testing, lockdowns

 Scientists and researchers at China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have made a rare call urging Beijing to focus on a booster vaccination campaign and consider an exit strategy out of President Xi Jinping’s “zero-COVID” approach. 

The briefing paper published last week by four scientists said, “The pathway forward is clear. Vaccinate with confidence and finish strong.”

While China has double-vaccinated most of its population, the booster campaign has only covered around two-thirds of the population. Many health experts say vaccinations have lagged with healthcare personnel and resources currently devoted to enforcing the rigid zero-COVID approach, which calls for regular mass testing, lockdowns and quarantines. 

There are as yet no signs of a change in approach from zero-COVID to a new vaccination campaign, particularly with an upcoming once-in-five-year Party Congress, where Mr. Xi will begin a third term, likely to trumpet the success of “zero-COVID”.

As of early September, more than 65 million people in 33 cities were in some form of lockdown in China, media outlet Caixin reported, with signs of people’s patience for the approach, three years into the pandemic, beginning to wane as more transmissible variants bring harsher lockdowns and challenge what was a successful strategy in 2020. Beijing has also lagged behind the rest of the world in opening up. 

The CDC paper acknowledged those concerns. “Everyone wants to return to normal life,” the four scientists, Dan Wu, Zundong Yin, Zijiang Feng, and Lance Rodewald, affiliated with the CDC’s National Immunization Program and the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, wrote. “Vaccination is the key, and time will run out for the vaccination campaign.”

“Sustaining optimised protection for a safe, long-term exit of the pandemic will almost certainly require well-timed second booster doses,” the paper said. “The last 10% in any vaccination campaign is the most difficult to reach, and in our case, the last 10% is also a critically important group to protect because the last 10% has an enrichment of people with comorbidities, many of whom are elderly and will suffer the most from COVID-19 if infected.”