Nearly 24 million elderly people yet to receive first Covid jab in China, says report

Hong Kong: Nearly 23.8 million people over the age of 60 in China are yet to receive their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine as the country goes through a massive surge in infections, said media reports on Monday. According to the South China Morning Post, as China eased its zero-Covid policy, the country doubled down on vaccination drives but the vaccination rate for the elderly is worryingly low. The vaccination figure fell to "just 42.4 per cent for those aged 80 and over", the report mentioned.

The elderly, most of whom have other ailments, are most concerned about the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines. Vaccination seemed less urgent for many elderly people, especially those in the country`s vast hinterland, and they lacked the motivation to get jabs.

"Some villagers complained of bad coughs, headaches and sore arms after being forced to accept their first shot, and after browsing alarmist posts about vaccine risks on social media platforms were more reluctant to get jabbed again," the report mentioned. China has now rolled out a second Covid booster drive for high-risk groups including those aged 60 and over or with weak immune systems.

Covid-19 Infecting 37 million people in a day in China: Report

Some 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, UK-based Financial Times (FT) reported, as Beijing discontinued restrictions that had contained the virus since the start of the pandemic.

Chinese officials estimate about 250 million people were infected with Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, Financial Times reported citing people familiar with the matter.  The estimates, including 37 million people who were infected on Tuesday alone, were revealed by Sun Yang, a deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a health briefing on Wednesday, the FT report said.

During the closed-door briefing, Sun said that the rate of COVID-19 spread in China was still rising and estimated that more than half of the population in Beijing and Sichuan were already infected.

On Sunday, China`s National Health Commission, which used to issue the country`s COVID-19 case figures on a daily basis, stopped publishing the update, The Global Times reported."China`s National Health Commission (NHC) will stop publishing daily COVID-19 case data from Sunday. Instead, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will release COVID-related info for study and reference," NHC said in a statement.

On the website, the National Health Commission on Saturday gave the Covid case figures of Friday. China mainland reported 4,128 new cases of confirmed infections and no new death in the country. On December 23, 1,760 patients were released from the hospital after being cured and 28,865 people who had had close contact with infected patients were freed from medical observation. The number of serious cases increased by 99. Earlier, British-based health data firm Airfinity, said that the infections in China are likely to be more than one million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day.