Vaccination key to relaxing Covid-19 controls in China: pandemic expert

Vaccine uptake has been slow among the elderly, who would ‘bear the brunt’ of a large-scale outbreak
Mild or no symptoms among the vaccinated are not a sign that the danger of deaths in high-risk groups has passed

Coronavirus China

Salina Li

Published: 3:37pm, 7 Oct 2022

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Now is not the time to relax Covid-19 controls in China, with the risk of a massive outbreak if the nation does not continue to actively limit the spread of infections, a national pandemic control expert said on Thursday.

Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious diseases department at Peking University First Hospital, told Science and Technology Daily that Omicron BA.5 – responsible for China’s current outbreaks – was less pathogenic but more infectious than previous variants.

A large-scale epidemic would inevitably lead to deaths in high-risk populations and the elderly “would bear the brunt” if controls were relaxed, he said.

Wang said younger people infected with the virus might have mild or no symptoms, but they could still pass it on to older family members who may not be fully vaccinated, putting them in danger.

China is the world’s only major economy to maintain strict Covid-19 restrictions, with massive lockdowns and mass testing routines aimed at stopping the spread of the virus ahead of the 20th Communist Party congress, which starts on October 16.

The task has been complicated by an increase in travel and social gatherings during the National Day “golden week” holiday which started on October 1 as sporadic outbreaks were emerging across the country.

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A commentary by party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Friday reinforced Wang’s message, saying the nation needed to “firmly guard the bottom line of no large-scale outbreak of Covid-19”.

“The current domestic and foreign epidemic prevention and control is complex, arduous and repeated, [we are still] far from being able to breathe a sigh of relief and rest,” the commentary said.

Wang said the large number of asymptomatic infections in China, as well as the low incidence of severe and critical illness, was partly because of the gradually increasing numbers of people getting vaccinated.

But while vaccination could effectively reduce the death rate in elderly patients, the current data showed there was still a gap in the rate of vaccinations among people aged 60 and above, especially those over 80 years of age, he said.

As of September 7, 90 per cent of China’s total population had received two doses of vaccine, mostly domestically produced. About 86 per cent of people aged 60 and above – 18.9 per cent of the population – were similarly protected. However, about 64 per cent of the elderly cohort had only received a booster shot.

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Wang said the protective effect of the vaccine for older people had been strongly demonstrated during the Omicron outbreak in Hong Kong, where the death rate among those aged 60 and over had increased by 252 times compared to those aged 18 to 30.

According to statistics from the Hong Kong Department of Health’s Centre for Health Protection, unvaccinated residents aged over 80 died at a rate of 14.96 per cent.

This compared to 7.08 per cent in the same age group who had received one dose of vaccine, 3.65 per cent at two doses, and just 1.3 per cent after one booster shot.

Wang said a prerequisite at this stage for relaxing China’s strict zero-Covid measures was to get vaccinated, especially for the elderly and people with underlying diseases.

The alternative risked large numbers of patients overwhelming hospitals and putting pressure on medical resources, which could lead to an increase in “secondary disasters”, he said.