Originally published on February 4, 2021 7:52 am
China has approved one domestic coronavirus vaccine for commercial use. Four more are in late stage human trials, and a nationwide vaccination campaign is already underway.
But the vaccine rollout is happening more slowly than expected. Only about 24 million doses have been administered, but those numbers represent only the first dose of a two-dose vaccine. That means at most, only 1.6% of China s population received their first shot by the end of January. Beijing s modest goal is to inoculate 50 million people or about 3.5% of the total population by mid-February, right before Lunar New Year.
China excels at mobilizing hundreds of millions of people for home isolation or mass COVID-19 testing. So why is it struggling with vaccination?