China is accelerating efforts to vaccinate older people against the coronavirus, health officials say, as security personnel came out in force to deter further demonstrations against strict “zero-Covid” controls.
The relatively low vaccination rate among China’s oldest people is a major reason the country is still trying to isolate every case even as the rest of the world is accepting the virus as endemic. Officials fear that opening up too quickly could bring a wave of Covid deaths and undermine public trust in the ruling Communist Party.
Protests of various sizes broke out in major cities thousands of miles apart over China’s Covid restrictions, which have confined millions of people to their homes and greatly harmed the economy. In some cases, protesters called for the ouster of President Many of the weekend protests took place on university campuses, which have historically been the birthplace of China’s political movements. Tsinghua University in Beijing, where protesting students had chanted, “We want democratic rule of law, we want freedom of speech,” said in a statement on an official WeChat account that it would assist students who wished to go home and study remotely, citing their health and safety.
Experts say China will have a tough time navigating its way out of the pandemic without getting more people inoculated. Many older people in China have resisted vaccination for fear of side effects, or because they saw little risk of contracting the virus in a country with virtually no cases. The proportion of people 60 and older who have received two doses is about 86.4%, according to official data, compared with 93% of people 65 and older in the U.S.
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