Coronavirus: China’s precursor vaccine already infects workers

Earlier this month, the head of a well-known, privately-owned Chinese conglomerate told his staff that a vaccine for Covid-19 was expected to hit the market in November.

The boss, whose company has a health care department, said he saw it as a sign of economic recovery; an opportunity for his companies to sell more, according to a person in the comments. Within a few weeks, the Chinese government was forced to go public with its apparent progress.

The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 originated in humans in China before spreading non-stop around the world. Now China is using its global footprint in a relentless effort to win the race to develop and deploy an effective vaccine.

Last week, one of the development faxes was pictured in state media; a small box of brand was shown, held up by a smiling woman in a lab. Sinopharm said it hopes to have it ready to go on sale in December. It even mentioned a price, equivalent to about $ 140 (£ 106).

Official and secret trials

China’s determination is there for all to see.

We know that half of the top six candidate faxes tested in the final phase of mass trials around the world are Chinese. These worldwide trials are a necessity.

Ironically, China is not in a position to test the vaccines at home on the required scale, because it is so successful in controlling the spread of the virus within its borders.

“All fax manufacturers are looking for sites for their phase three trials (in which the vaccine is given to thousands of people) where Covid-19 still circulates relatively higher rates,” said Professor Ben Cowling of the Hong Kong University Public School of Health. told me.

He is optimistic about all the faxes that are currently in development, including the Chinese.

“I think all faxes currently in phase three have a good chance of being effective.”

However, China – like Russia, and as some in the White House want – has gone a step further.

A senior Chinese health official revealed the extent of that last weekend when he confirmed that China has been secretly testing faxes on key public workers since last month.

Zheng Zhongwei of the National Health Commission told state-run television that emergency services that allowed the use of unapproved developmental vaccines allowed border officials and other areas to provide a vaccine.

Being first is perhaps not all, ability to scale up will be the key. “I think there may be a few vaccines coming on the market in December, but I’m not sure if they’s available in large quantities,” said Prof Cowling.

He thinks that summer 2021 will more often be the time for whole populations to be immunized against Covid-19.

There are different levels of experimentation. China has already confirmed that it is involved in official, advanced trials of a vaccine on thousands of people in countries including the UAE, Peru and Argentina.

This is part of a series of well-documented global collaborations between governments and pharmaceutical companies.

Then there are unpublished trials. In what appears to be links to the emergency force vaccination experiments, and not the official phase three trials, a group of Chinese miners was recently denied entry to Papua New Guinea after their employer revealed that they were using them for vaccine trials.

Some 48 workers were injected in early August, according to a statement from the Chinese state-owned company that the mine is operating in the Pacific Islands.

The PNG authorities were concerned that they were being held in the dark and that some of the workers had tested positive for Covid-19.

‘Fax diplomacy’ as propaganda?

There is ambiguity about what China will do with the vaccine if and when it has. The English language version of the official government report on China’s response to the outbreak states “the Covid-19 vaccine [is] to be used as a global public product once developed and deployed in China “.

China has signaled that countries in Africa and its neighbors in Southeast Asia would be the first to benefit from a Chinese-developed vaccine, once rolled out in China. But some also see diplomatic leverage at stake.

One senior European diplomat pointed to what they saw as the clumsy propaganda efforts of China during its “mask diplomacy” in Serbia and Italy, where it sent health kits as the outbreak subsided.

They warned that “fax diplomacy”, with China potentially in a very influential position, could be far more calculated.

“They have invested a lot in fax research,” Prof Cowling said of China, “and it pays off now.”