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It's likely whatever vaccine they have has similar effects, but they're going for a zero-Covid strategy so death rate doesn't even matter.
by chrischen 5y ago
It's likely whatever vaccine they have has similar effects, but they're going for a zero-Covid strategy so death rate doesn't even matter.
- nicoburns 5y agoMy understanding is that that the clinical trials for Sinovac showed ~50% efficacy against the original covid variant vs 70-something percent for AstraZeneca, and 80-something for Pfizer and Moderna, and that efficacy for all of them has decreased as new variants have emerged. While 50% isn't useless it does seem significantly worse than the other vaccines. And frankly if I were Chinese I'd be questioning why China didn't license one of the other vaccines rather than continuing with their less effective homegrown version. My understanding is also that regardless of vaccine used, the Chinese government is still trying to blame outbreaks on foreigners, and as such has prioritised vaccinating people like dock workers and airline staff over their elderly which seems rather questionable at this point. Australia and New Zealand also attempted a zero-covid strategy, which worked well enough until Omicron. But they have both now abandoned this strategy, and I feel like China is going to have to do the same at some point.
- chrischen 5y ago90% of the Chinese government's job is just saving face. They have the emotional maturity of a child, which makes sense because the whole system they have is relatively new. So pretending and acting as if the virus is some sort of foreign threat that can be curbed by 0-covid strategies (which failed even for hermetically sealed countries) is all part of that face saving campaign. They want to look like the country that had Covid under control—at all costs.