Since its appearance around three years ago, Covid-19 has not stopped shaking the planet on a daily basis. In China, the birthplace of the virus, the pandemic is even taking on the appearance of an endless nightmare.
In an attempt to get out, and as the disease is experiencing a new boom since the regime was forced to relax its health policy in the face of popular protests, many Chinese are playing their game to the max. They travel to the city of Macau to benefit from an anti-Covid-19 vaccine based on Messenger RNA technology, considered more effective than national vaccines. Those who can afford it anyway. Because, as the international press that this week became aware of the phenomenon pointed out, the process is as difficult as it is expensive.
Prepare for the most urgent
To better understand this medical exodus, we must return to the immediate Chinese context. Overwhelmed by a particularly drastic health strategy -closing residences, neighborhoods and agglomerations at every alert- and conquered by an increasingly virulent weariness expressed in demonstrations with a dangerously political tone for the communist authorities, the Chinese population obtained the end of “Covid zero “. “in early December.
Problem: In a country where vaccination has some shortcomings, in terms of patient coverage and effectiveness, this era of freedom -or this relaxation according to opinions- quickly turned into a virological bomb. If the “zero covid” policy ban has led to the end of mandatory testing, depriving us of reliable data on local contamination, worrying elements suggest that China is currently facing an unprecedented outbreak of the virus. Thus, according to a survey carried out by the magazine the pekingese with 3,000 expatriates and assumed in particular by The world58% of the panel say they have contracted the virus between December 1 and 15 (date of publication of the survey).
There is no reason to be surprised as vaccination is declining in the People’s Republic. It is true that the official statistics, released last spring by The express, paint the picture of a population inoculated up to 88%, of which 51% having received their three doses. However, the shoe squeezes, and to a great extent, with respect to its most vulnerable segments. According to figures published Monday by the financial timesOf the 267 million Chinese aged 60 and over, 85 million did not receive their third dose. Worse still, the rate of these elderly without this reminder reaches 60% among those over 80 years of age.
Disenchantment around Chinese vaccines
The opacity that remains around Chinese vaccines -the Chinese government only authorizes the injection of Sinovac and Sinopharm products, local solutions developed around the classic vaccination technique known as “deactivated vaccine”- and its lesser efficacy against some of their western counterparts explain this denial. .
Thus, according to the WHO, the Sinopharm vaccine is only 79% effective against symptomatic forms, while, from the same source, it seems that Sinovac only protects 51% against this same Covid in symptoms. This is all the less satisfactory since the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine with messenger RNA exceeds 95%. And according to this study Lancetthe risk of suffering from a carabinieri version of Covid-19 is double with three doses of one of the two Chinese vaccines than with three doses of the latter.
Yet it is this RNA bite that Macao – a former Portuguese colony attached to China but enjoying special administrative region status – intends to manage.
$60 to $170 per dose
However, with finances. Thus, the hospital of the University of Science and Technology of Macao, the only establishment in the city that vaccinates tourists, invoices the syringe shot.
This can change. At leastand according to a local insurance agent who organizes vaccination sessions interviewed by the financial times, the trip and the meeting will cost 60 dollars. This is a low range. In fact, a Chinese couple interviewed by the same British business newspaper estimated their adventure at $170 per dose, per person.
However, the painful thing should not be so much: the financial times He also points out that the only hospital open to these patients from other places is full until the end of December at least. Macau’s success in lifting restrictions on tourists’ vaccinations a month ago after international mail, is easily understood. This relatively self-governing city is the only place a Chinese citizen can go without being quarantined upon his return.
Source: BFM TV
