As key groups get COVID-19 inoculation, more wonder when it will be their turn

Some Western countries started rolling out large-scale coronavirus inoculations in late December, and China was no exception. According to official data, China has distributed over 4.5 million doses of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines to key groups so far – all of them free of cost.

People engaged in handling imported cold-chain products, customs officers, medical workers, and public transport and fresh markets workers were among the first people to receive China's domestically made coronavirus vaccine.

A total of 73,537 people have received the first dose of their COVID-19 vaccine since Beijing began administering it among groups with a high risk of infection on January 1.  It is expected that Beijing will complete COVID-19 inoculation among key groups before the Spring Festival, which falls on February 12 this year. The total targeted population in Beijing stands at about 200,000 people.

As of Monday, 217,158 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to key groups in east China's Shandong Province, and according to the provincial Health Commission, no serious side effects have been reported among vaccine recipients so far.

Aside from Beijing and Shandong, municipalities like Shanghai and Shenzhen and provinces like Shaanxi, Guizhou, Henan and Jiangxi have also rolled out COVID-19 inoculation drives. So far, no serious adverse reactions have been reported.

As China moves to quickly secure the health of at-risk populations, some people have begun to wonder when it will be their turn, while others express concern about the vaccine's safety and efficacy.

According to Cui Gang, head of the Disease Control and Prevention Bureau of the National Health Commission (NHC), the COVID-19 vaccination drive will be conducted in two stages. The first gives privilege to key groups. After this, as the vaccine receives market approval and vaccine production increases, all eligible people in the country would receive the COVID-19 vaccine for free.

Experts say a 60 or 70 percent vaccination rate is needed to establish universal protection.

Safety and production of Chinese vaccines

Yang Xiaoming, chairman of Sinopharm China National Biotec Group (CNBG), said Sinopharm built two workshops, one in Beijing and  the other in Wuhan, to produce 300 million doses of inactivated vaccines within a year, and the company is now expanding the capacity of the workshops. It's estimated that the expansion will boost production by another 1 billion doses of inactivated vaccines in 2021. Since one needs two shots, it means the total of 1.3 billion doses of vaccines will inoculate 650 million people, which accounts for nearly half of China's population.

On December 30, Beijing Biological Products Institute, a Sinopharm subsidiary, announced that the phase three trials of the vaccine it developed showed a 79.34 percent efficacy against COVID-19. Meanwhile, interim results of the phase three trials conducted earlier this month in the United Arab Emirates suggest that the vaccine is 86 percent effective. According to Sinopharm's data, over 600,000 Chinese people have been inoculated with the two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines it developed, and no serious adverse effects have been reported so far.

Another Chinese company, Sinovac, is also working on producing an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. Its president Yin Weidong said the company can produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine within a year, and the company will enlarge its production capacity based on future market demand.

The vaccine it developed is called CoronaVac, which has been undergoing phase three trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey. Last week, interim data from a late-stage trial in Turkey showed that the vaccine was 91.25 percent effective.

Meanwhile, CanSino Biologics Inc. and the Academy of Military Sciences are developing an adenovirus vector vaccine for COVID-19. Its president Yu Xuefeng said over 10,000 people have participated in its phase three clinical trials, and so far no, serious adverse reactions have been reported. Once it receives market approval, its annual production of the vaccine can reach 100 to 200 million doses, the president said.

Additionally, a recombinant subunit vaccine jointly developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and the Institute of Microbiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences is also undergoing phase three clinical trials. Based on its previous announcement, the company can produce 300 million doses of the vaccine annually once it gets approval.

So far, most of the COVID-19 vaccines for key groups are inactivated COVID-19 vaccines developed by Sinopharm and Sinovac. According to the Chinese health authorities, more than 1.5 million doses of these COVID-19 vaccines were distributed for emergency use by the end of November last year. Also, 60,000 vaccinated people had traveled abroad to high-risk regions, with no severe adverse reactions reported, the authorities said.