As zero-Covid ends, Chinese want foreign vaccines and antivirals.
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Western Covid Medicine to China’s Rescue - WSJ
The Editorial BoardUpdated Dec. 28, 2022 at 6:59 pm ET
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Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co. said Tuesday that Chinese users of its health app can
now sign up to get doses of the Western-made BioNTech mRNA vaccine in Hong Kong. That’s happy news for affluent Chinese passport holders who can hop a flight to Hong Kong or nearby Macau, where vaccine tourism has been booming since Mainland infections began to rise.
Less lucky are the hundreds of millions of Chinese who don’t have a passport, much less the means to jet off for a weekend jab. What would Mao Zedong say about this lack of equality, Comrade Xi?
For nearly three years China has refused to accept Western mRNA shots while favoring Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines. But that nationalist strategy has lost credibility as zero-Covid ends and infection spreads in China. A December review of Singapore health data in the Lancet found that people over age 60 who received three doses of a traditional vaccine (like those made in China) had higher incidence of severe Covid and Covid hospitalization than those who took the mRNA vaccines.
Hong Kong has obediently adjusted its vaccination policies to absorb the moneyed Mainland masses, but vaccination tourism won’t be enough to prevent the contagion inflicting preventable deaths on the Mainland. The sudden reversal of Covid mandates in an aging population with limited natural immunity is feeding a wave of infection that needs treatment as much as prevention.
Here too the Western medical cavalry has arrived with Pfizer’s Paxlovid, the antiviral that moderates symptoms for most patients. China approved the drug for emergency use in February, but demand is now outpacing supply.
Lines have been stretching outside fever clinics and community health centers in major Chinese cities. In mid-December, Reuters reported that a Chinese health app offering Paxlovid sold out in half an hour. The South China Morning Post says Mainland demand for antiviral drugs is so high that many Chinese are now scooping up Indian generic versions that may be less effective.
China denied its citizens the best vaccines and therapies because it didn’t want to admit the inferiority of its medical science and biotechnology industry. Pfizer and Moderna were offering to sell their vaccines to Beijing, but the Party demanded that the companies turn over their intellectual property. Mr. Xi may also have figured China could steal it.
Beijing had nearly three years to prepare for the inevitable end of zero-Covid, and it could have done so by buying Western vaccines, antivirals and even basic fever medicines that are also now in short supply in China. This month’s Chinese protests questioned President Xi’s zero-Covid lockdowns. The next protest should question why so many Chinese are needlessly dying because the Party followed Mr. Xi’s blinkered nationalism.
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