[China’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign got off to a slow start. It is now trying to catch up, through a mixture of freebies and the occasional threat.]
By Vivian Wang and Keith Bradsher
China is deploying a medley of
tactics, some tantalizing and some threatening, to achieve mass vaccination on
a staggering scale: a goal of 560 million people, or 40 percent of its
population, by the end of June.
China has already proven how
effectively it can mobilize against the coronavirus. And other countries have
achieved widespread vaccination, albeit in much smaller populations.
But China faces a number of
challenges. The country’s near-total control over the coronavirus has left many
residents feeling little urgency to get vaccinated. Some are wary of China’s
history of vaccine-related scandals, a fear that the lack of transparency
around Chinese coronavirus vaccines has done little to assuage. Then there is
the sheer size of the population to be inoculated.
To get it done, the government has
turned to a familiar tool kit: a sprawling, quickly mobilized bureaucracy and
its sometimes heavy-handed approach. This top-down, all-out response
helped tame
the virus early on, and now the authorities hope to replicate that success
with vaccinations.
Already, uptake has skyrocketed. Over the past week, China has administered an
average of about 4.8 million doses a day, up from about one million a day for much
of last month. Experts have said they hope to reach 10 million a day to meet
the June goal.
“They say it’s voluntary, but if
you don’t get the vaccine, they’ll just keep calling you,” said Annie Chen, a
university student in Beijing who received two such entreaties from a school
counselor in about a week.
Worried about possible side
effects, Ms. Chen had not planned to sign up. But after the counselor warned
that she could soon face restrictions on access to public places, she relented
— in part because she felt bad for him. “The counselor seemed to think his job
was pretty hard, too. He sounded exhausted,” she said.
Public anxiety about the vaccines
emerged early. One survey in February, co-authored by the head of China’s
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, found that less than half of medical
workers in the eastern province of Zhejiang were willing to be vaccinated, many
citing fear of side effects. By mid-March, China had administered only
about 65 million doses for a population of 1.4 billion.
Even with the recent surge in
vaccinations, China still lags
far behind dozens of other countries. Though China has approved five
homegrown vaccines, it has administered 10 shots for every 100 residents.
Britain has administered 56 for every 100; the United States, 50.
Prominent doctors have warned that
China’s sluggish pace threatens to undermine the country’s successful
containment measures.
“China is at a very critical
moment,” Zhong Nanshan, a top respiratory disease expert, said in a recent interview with the Chinese news
media. “When other countries have been very well vaccinated, and China still
lacks immunity, then that will be very dangerous.”
The warnings have been accompanied
by a sweeping propaganda campaign and copious consumerist bait.
On Monday, the Wangfujing shopping
district in Beijing was teeming with bargains for the vaccinated. A Lego store
offered a free kit to assemble a chick emerging from an egg. A street stall
touted a 10 percent discount on tea. A state-run photo studio even advertised a
discount on wedding photos.
The promotion seemed to be working
at one vaccination center, where people lined up for two-for-one soft serve at
a bright yellow McDonald’s ice cream truck parked outside.
Wang Xuan, an employee inside the
truck, described how the advertisement caught the attention of one passer-by.
“He went straight inside to get the
vaccine and then came out to us to buy ice cream,” Mr. Wang said.
Other localities have opted for
more stick than carrot (or ice cream).
In Chongqing, a company notice
ordered workers between 18 and 59 without underlying health conditions to be
vaccinated by the end of April, or be “held accountable,” though it did not elaborate.
A government bulletin in the city of Haikou, in Hainan,
said companies with less than 85 percent vaccination rates would be issued a
warning and could be suspended for “rectification.”
The city of Ruili, in southwestern
China, last week became the first to adopt mandatory
vaccination for eligible residents, after a small outbreak there. An
official said the city expected to vaccinate the entire population of more than
200,000 people in five days by running vaccination sites 24 hours a day.
Some social media users have
complained that the pressure campaigns restrict their right of choice. But Tao
Lina, a vaccination expert and former immunologist at the Shanghai Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, said it was justifiable to impose somewhat
punitive measures in the name of public health.
“At this time, overly emphasizing
freedom of choice is not a good idea,” Dr. Tao said. “Look at America: They
wanted to choose not to wear face masks. That seems like a kind of freedom, but
then what happened?”
Governments and companies in other
countries have also adopted what some see as coercive measures. The Italian prime
minister recently issued
a decree requiring vaccinations for health care workers. A waitress in
New York City was
fired for refusing vaccination. Many countries are considering issuing
vaccine passports for entry into public facilities.
Still, even China’s state-owned
media has acknowledged that some local officials have been overzealous in their
enforcement.
Xinhua, the state news agency,
published an opinion
piece last week denouncing “one-size-fits-all, simple and crude
methods” that it said could engender even more public opposition.
“These harmful developments are in
reality the product of a small number of regions and companies that are anxious
to complete their vaccination responsibilities,” it said. (The Wancheng
government later apologized for its warning about children’s futures.)
It’s unclear how many of the
promised restrictions are being enforced. Wu Kunzhou, a community worker in
Haikou, the city where businesses were threatened with suspension, said he had
marked a few businesses with red posters. “Company that does not meet
vaccination standards,” the posters said. But there were no accompanying fines,
and he said he could not force anyone to get vaccinated.
“The main thing is, there are
orders from above,” Mr. Wu said.
Some residents have remained
staunchly opposed to vaccination, despite the barrage of messaging.
Lu Xianyun, a 51-year-old
construction industry employee in Guangzhou, cited a number of revelations in
recent years of children in China being injected with faulty vaccines. “I don’t
trust them,” he said of the vaccine manufacturers.
Local officials have also issued
conflicting guidance on the safety of vaccination for pregnant women. Some have
reassured women trying to conceive that they should sign up, while others have
urged those women to delay pregnancy.
Dr. Tao said officials had not done
enough to instill public confidence in the vaccines. He said that he could
think of only one prominent official, Dr. Zhang Wenhong — often
compared to China’s Dr. Anthony S. Fauci — who had been publicly
vaccinated. It doesn’t help that Chinese vaccine companies have been slow
to share clinical trial data.
“If our country wants to improve public enthusiasm,” Dr. Tao said, “it would be best to share videos of leaders, cadres and Communist Party members getting vaccinated.”
Liu Yi, Joy Dong and Elsie Chen
contributed research.
