More Bad News for Chinese Vaccines
China is distributing Sinovac and other inoculants widely as part of its vaccine diplomacy effort. It is able to ship vaccines because it has been successful in controlling its own infection rates. So it can afford to capitalize on goodwill it would gain for helping other countries. Meanwhile the West hoards vaccine for its own citizens.
But the diplomatic effort may not be going so well. About a two months ago Corona-zona Senior Southeast Asia correspondent PBR had a post about how branding for China's vaccines, particularly Sinovac, is not working out very well in Asia. People openly question China's motives and especially the vaccines' effectiveness.
As for the latter, there is widespread recognition that the vaccines don't work as well as their Western counterparts. A Chinese official actually said this out-loud about a month ago. I'm surprised I haven't heard that he's been disappeared by now.
The latest hit to China's efforts is a realization that the low effectiveness of its vaccines is translating into poor protection at the population level. About a month ago I had a post about the Seychelles, which was experiencing an outbreak despite having 70% of their population vaccinated. They primarily used Chinese vaccines.
There is a similar situation in Bahrain, which Ars Technica describes as one of the first countries to embrace and distribute the Chinese products:
Nearly 58 percent of the Persian Gulf country has received at least one dose of a vaccine, and most of the vaccines given in Bahrain are from Sinopharm. But the country is now seeing its worst wave of COVID-19 yet and the government has recently issued a two-week lockdown to try to get transmission under control.
As a result they are offing high-risk groups who have already received two doses of of a Chinese vaccine to be re-inoculated with the Pfizer product. It's the same situation in Dubai.
The moral of the story is, if you're trying to exploit a diplomatic opportunity with a vaccine, you'd better make sure the vaccine works. Otherwise you demonstrate your limitations in very personal terms.
