BEIJING: China is calculating how many people working in high-risk professions, including cold-chain, medical and port workers, will need to receive COVID-19 vaccines, health officials said Monday.
Experts said the mass vaccination of ordinary people is likely to be rolled out in the second quarter of 2021, when vaccines are officially allowed to enter the market.
Previously, the Global Time learned that China is planning to vaccinate 50 million people in high-risk groups before Chinese New Year which falls on February 12. That number was not confirmed by officials at the conference. Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based expert on vaccines and a former Shanghai disease prevention and control employee, told the Global Times on Monday that vaccination of some 50 million people in high-risk professions before Spring Festival could prevent a potential infection rise caused by the travel rush.
After the first shot, people could produce a low level of antibodies, but after the second shot, the rate of antibodies is likely to reach 95 percent in about a week, Tao said, adding that “the generated antibodies of those 50 million people will return us to a safe Spring Festival.”
The Spring Festival travel rush is also known as the world’s biggest annual human migration. About 2.97 billion trips were made in 2018 Spring Festival travel rush and about 2.98 billion in 2019. The Spring Festival travel rush will start on January 28, 2021 and end on March 8, authorities said.
But Tao said vaccines against COVID-19 will not be open to the general public until vaccines are officially allowed to enter the market.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
