Coronavirus: not everyone in China will need vaccine, health chief says

• Widespread vaccination won’t be needed ‘as long as the country avoids another major outbreak’
• Neighbourhood in Yunnan city locked down after report of suspected case

China will not need a sweeping coronavirus vaccination programme because the pathogen is effectively under control in the country – at least for now, according to China’s disease prevention chief.

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Sunday that large-scale vaccination for Covid-19 would only be needed if there was a major outbreak, like the one in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in February, China News Service reported.

“This is an issue of balancing risk and return,” Gao was quoted as saying

He said it would be a waste to vaccinate everyone when the coronavirus had largely been wiped out within China’s borders.

China reported 10 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, all of which were imported.

The CDC chief said the first batch of vaccines should be given to frontline medical and epidemic prevention workers, followed by security, cleaning and catering staff and civil servants working in crowded places.

But if there was another big outbreak like the one in Wuhan, then there should be “large-scale vaccination of residents”, he said.

https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/3101369/coronavirus-not-everyone-china-will-need-vaccine-cdc