Beijing has launched a massive Covid-19 vaccination campaign after it basically finished the inoculation of key groups around the Spring Festival holidays, with many districts expected to complete the vaccination drive in May. No new domestically transmitted confirmed Covid-19 cases have been reported on the Chinese mainland since February 15, according to the National Health Commission. The Covid-19 threat level in the last existing medium-risk areas on the Chi?nese mainland has been downgraded to low, marking the elimination of all medium- and high-risk areas for Covid-19.  Wangkui county in Heilongjiang province has been downgraded from medium to low risk as no new confirmed or asymptomatic cases were reported over the past two weeks. Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, also downgraded its last medium-risk district.

Beijing’s most populous district – Chaoyang – opened  vaccination venues gradually to the general public aged 18 to 59 starting on February 18. Daxing and 15 sub-districts in Xicheng started their vaccination programs on the previous day. Other districts including Fengtai, Shunyi, Fangshan and Miyun started their campaigns already before the Spring Festival. As of January 16, China’s capital city had inoculated 1.7 million residents and could vaccinate another 100,000 to 150,000 a day. The emergency inoculation program had administered two doses to 2.5 million people by about February 10. Beijing has more than 20 million residents and 70% to 85% of them need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, which would be 14 million people or more. Experts estimated that the city now can inoculate at least 200,000 people a day and the capacity will further expand. 

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and several secretaries took their first shot of the Chinese mainland-developed Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in a live broadcast on February 22.  Lam said at a press conference that the vaccine brings light in the fight against the epidemic. The first batch of 1 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine arrived in Hong Kong last week, and the first batch of 1 million doses co-developed by Chinese company Fosun and German vaccine producer BioNTech will arrive by the end of February. Authorities said they will launch online reservations for vaccinations, which will start on February 26. The vaccination is free of charge in Hong Kong. Hong Kong residents will be able to get vaccinated at 29 centers across the city with five offering Sinovac and 24 offering BioNtech vaccines. The Hong Kong SAR government has signed a contract with mainland vaccine producer Sinovac to buy 7.5 million doses of CoronaVac. It has also reached agreements with two other vaccine producers, Fosun Pharma and  AstraZeneca to purchase 7.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from each. Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection reported 16 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 on February 22, taking the total to 10,884. Of the new infections, 13 were locally transmitted. 

Chinese experts warned that a more dangerous virus could emerge if SARS-CoV-2 recombines with other coronaviruses. Bette Korber, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S., earlier this month said she discovered evidence of the new strain, which was a recombination of the variants detected in the UK and California and which may be responsible for a recent wave of cases in Los Angeles, according to the London-based New Scientist Magazine. Recombination can be viewed as a greater variation than mutations discovered previously. But as long as it is still limited within the SARS-CoV-2 strains, it would not largely affect the virus’ antigenicity, a Beijing-based vaccine expert told the Global Times. However, the expert warned that the situation would be worse if a recombination occurs between SARS-CoV-2 and another coronavirus – for example, the SARS virus. If confirmed, the recombination would be the first to be detected in this pandemic.

A number of countries, including Hungary, Senegal, Morocco and Zimbabwe have received batches of coronavirus vaccines during the Chinese New Year holiday. Hungary sent a chartered flight to Beijing to pick up the first batch of 550,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses, making Hungary the first European Union member country to purchase a China-produced vaccine. Morocco welcomed its first shipment of vaccines from China on January 27, and initiated its nationwide inoculation plan the next day. Feng Duojia, President of the China Vaccine Industry Association, previously told the Global Times that he estimated China’s total Covid-19 vaccine production capacity will eventually reach 4 billion doses per year, covering 40% of global demand. 

This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.