‘China delayed jabbing the elderly against Covid and as it opens up, could regret it’ | World News - Hindustan Times
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‘China delayed jabbing the elderly against Covid and as it opens up, could regret it’

Dec 03, 2022 04:36 PM IST

Several major Chinese cities including Beijing, neighbouring Tianjin, southwest China’s Chongqing, the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen and Hangzhou in the east have eased or easing Covid-19 requirements

Beijing: China’s decision to delay vaccinating senior citizens to focus on frontline workers during its initial inoculation drives could prove costly as the country gradually eases the ‘zero-Covid’ policy, potentially exposing hundreds of millions among the vulnerable elderly to the virus, experts said.

Elderly people exercise in the morning at a park in Beijing, China. (REUTERS)
Elderly people exercise in the morning at a park in Beijing, China. (REUTERS)

Several major Chinese cities including Beijing, neighbouring Tianjin, southwest China’s Chongqing, the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen and Hangzhou in the east have eased or easing requirements of the two-to-three-day negative Covid test results needed to access public transport or enter public spaces like malls.

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More easing of rules including resumption of in-dining in restaurants are expected in the coming days as China slowly exits its ‘zero-Covid’ policy.

The focus will now be on vaccinating the elderly, especially those over 80 years old, officials have said.

By the end of 2021, China had 267 million people aged 60 and above, or 18.9% of the total population while those aged 65 and above accounted for over 14% of the population, official media reported earlier this year.

China opened Covid-19 vaccination for older adults in April 2021, months after it started vaccinating frontline workers in July 2020.

The first phase of emergency vaccination for people in high-risk and critical groups was followed by the second phase of mass inoculation drives for adults aged 18–59.

Earlier this week, the national health commission announced a new push to vaccinate the elderly population.

“All countries in the world that have emerged from the epidemic have reached a consensus on the protection of the elderly population,” Zhang Wenhong, a leading infectious diseases expert in China was quoted as saying in the state-run, China Daily newspaper.

“The protection of vulnerable groups with vaccines is the key to reducing hospital stays and strains on medical resources and overcoming the epidemic,” Zhang said.

“By Monday, the mainland had fully vaccinated just over 90% of its population, and 65.8% of people over age 80 in the mainland had completed two doses of vaccines, up from about 40% in mid-November,” the report said.

Low percentage of vaccination among the elderly is a reason for China’s stringent Covid controls, indicated Katherine Mason, a leading medical anthropologist who has worked on China’s health policies, and who said that it is definitely a possibility that the country could see a surge in infections among the elderly after the easing of restrictions.

“Yes, this is definitely very possible. This is a big reason why there is so much unease and hesitancy about lifting the restrictions, both in various levels of the government and among the general population,” Mason, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Brown University, said.

China needs to realise that the surge is inevitable, Mason said.

“They (Chinese authorities) need to first make peace with the fact that this surge will happen and find a way to message this to the public productively. They are very capable of mounting a major, rapid campaign to mitigate death and morbidity through vaccination campaigns, a surge in health capacity, the building of a volunteer force to help health professionals in managing cases, etc,” Mason said.

China’s own scientists had warned earlier this year that vaccination for the elderly should be prioritised.

“To promote the Covid-19 vaccination among older adults, it is critical to shift the vaccination sequence to prioritise older adults as the vaccination population,” four Chinese scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai and Yale University in the US said in a paper published by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in September.

Their paper was titled: “Perspectives: Promote COVID-19 Vaccination for Older Adults in China”.

The four scientists advised that in the backdrop of the “global Omicron pandemic” and low coverage of full and booster vaccination of older adults in China, “…there is an urgent need to accelerate the process of Covid-19 vaccination of older adults”.

It might not be that easy, and the government has to send the correct message across to the vulnerable group.

“But they (the government) need to pivot from total containment to a mitigation stage. And they need to message this properly to bring people along,” Mason said.

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