In Beijing, the vaccinated qualify for buy-one-get-one-free ice cream cones. In northern Gansu Province, a county government published a 20-stanza poem extolling the virtues of the jab. In the southern town of Wancheng, officials warned parents that if they refused to get vaccinated, their children’s schooling and future employment and housing were all at risk.
China is deploying a medley of tactics, some tantalizing and some threatening, to achieve mass vaccination on a staggering scale: a goal of 560 million people, or 40 percent of its population, by the end of June.
China has already proven how effectively it can mobilize against the coronavirus. And other countries have achieved widespread vaccination, albeit in much smaller populations.
But China faces a number of challenges. The country’s near-total control over the coronavirus has left many residents feeling little urgency to get vaccinated. Some are wary of China’s history of vaccine-related scandals, a fear that the lack of transparency around Chinese coronavirus vaccines has done little to assuage. Then there is the sheer size of the population to be inoculated.
tame the virus early on, and now the authorities hope to replicate that success with vaccinations.
Already, uptake has skyrocketed. Over the past week, China has administered an average of about 4.8 million doses a day, up from about one million a day for much of last month. Experts have said they hope to reach 10 million a day to meet the June goal.
“They say it’s voluntary, but if you don’t get the vaccine, they’ll just keep calling you,” said Annie Chen, a university student in Beijing who received two such entreaties from a school counselor in about a week.
survey in February, co-authored by the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, found that less than half of medical workers in the eastern province of Zhejiang were willing to be vaccinated, many citing fear of side effects. By mid-March, China had administered only about 65 million doses for a population of 1.4 billion.
Even with the recent surge in vaccinations, China still lags far behind dozens of other countries. Though China has approved five homegrown vaccines, it has administered 10 shots for every 100 residents. Britain has administered 56 for every 100; the United States, 50.
Prominent doctors have warned that China’s sluggish pace threatens to undermine the country’s successful containment measures.
“China is at a very critical moment,” Zhong Nanshan, a top respiratory disease expert, said in a recent interview with the Chinese news media. “When other countries have been very well vaccinated, and China still lacks immunity, then that will be very dangerous.”
The warnings have been accompanied by a sweeping propaganda campaign and copious consumerist bait.
On Monday, the Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing was teeming with bargains for the vaccinated. A Lego store offered a free kit to assemble a chick emerging from an egg. A street stall touted a 10 percent discount on tea. A state-run photo studio even advertised a discount on wedding photos.
The promotion seemed to be working at one vaccination center, where people lined up for two-for-one soft serve at a bright yellow McDonald’s ice cream truck parked outside.