While a lot has been said and written about the first Covid-19 inoculations in the UK with the Pfizer/BioNTec vaccine, China has already distributed millions of doses to other countries. Indonesia received its first shipment of 1.2 million doses of CoronaVac from China  to prepare for a mass inoculation program. The Indonesian government plans to bring in 15 million more doses of semi-finished vaccine products this month, while as many as 30 million semi-finished doses are expected to arrive in January to handle the pandemic, which has killed more than 17,740 in Indonesia, said President Joko Widodo. The proportionally diluted vaccine concentrates will be further processed by Indonesian state-owned vaccine producer Bio Farma to package it in bottles or syringes. 

Brazil’s most populated state Sao Paulo received the first batch of 120,000 CoronaVac doses in November and 600 liters of vaccine concentrate recently, making Brazil the first country in Latin America to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus, while Turkey’s Health Minister announced an immunization plan using a Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine later this month. Fahrettin Koca said the country had signed a contract to buy 50 million doses of vaccine from China’s Sinovac. 

Jiang Chunlai from Jilin University’s School of Life Sciences told the Global Times that compared with the mRNA vaccine widely used by Western pharmaceutical companies, China’s traditional inactivated vaccine is technologically mature, and triggers less adverse reactions. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products are both made using a revolutionary genetic technique, but need to be stored at very low temperatures – minus 70º and minus 20ºC respectively – which poses serious barriers to logistics in some underdeveloped countries. 

In response to questions as to why China has not presented their trial data, Jiang said that Pfizer and Moderna conducted trials in countries where the virus is rife, which helps them gather efficient data on short notice. China only has a few cases, and countries like Brazil and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also have fewer cases than the U.S. and Europe, said Jiang. Sinovac announced that it has received about USD500 million from Sino Biopharmaceutical for the further development and expansion of manufacturing capacity. Current production volume is 300 million doses by  year end. 

Another leading producer, Sinopharm, told the Global Times that it keeps improving its late-stage data against the clock at the request of the Chinese regulator. Its vaccine was 86% effective against the corona-virus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Health Ministry said, citing an interim analysis of in-country late-stage clinical trials. The UAE has officially approved and registered the vaccine. Sinopharm has already carried out a China-wide logistics exercise to ensure safe and efficient vaccine distribution, with experts predicting that the vaccine is very likely to be licensed and available in the market by the end of December. Six Chinese-developed vaccines were in late-stage clinical trials, among which four were inactivated vaccines.

An increasing number of residents of Hong Kong are crossing over to mainland China at the Shenzhen Bay checkpoint amid the fourth wave in Hong Kong. They are facing a 14-day quarantine in designated hotels before being allowed to travel onwards. Most hotels are already operating at full capacity. The fourth wave, which saw a peak around November 23, is in a slow downward trend, but the R0 number in the city currently remains at around 1. 

Chengdu, in Sichuan province, has entered “wartime mode” after 12 domestic Covid-19 cases were found in a week, with authorities racing against time to track the patients’ close contacts scattered across the city. Experts say there is a high possibility that the Chengdu outbreak can be traced back to imported cases or goods. It is the first time that Chengdu has seen Covid-19 infections since March. After the outbreak, Chengdu urgently carried out nucleic acid tests of over one million people. 

Two border cities in Heilongjiang province also reported new cases. To prevent a relapse of the Covid-19 epidemic, several cities in Heilongjiang will start school winter vacations earlier than scheduled. Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia currently has 27 confirmed cases. 

The city of Hefei is taking strict measures regarding its imported cold-chain market, requiring identity information from buyers of these products, but the new policy will have a limited effect because many vendors have suspended such business. The city is also implementing  strict disinfection and multiple certification requirements. Hefei’s largest wholesale farmers’ market, Baida Zhougudui, stopped selling imported frozen food last month, and a Carrefour mall also stopped selling such products. More than 40 imported cold food chain products testing positive have been reported in at least 16 provinces and regions. Four certificates are mandatory before an imported cold-chain product can go to market: a traceability certificate, certificate of entry inspection and quarantine, nucleic acid testing certificate, and disinfection certificate. 

According to the latest reports, Covid-19 outbreaks with unknown sources of infection are taking place in at least five Chinese cities – Dongning and Suifenhe in Heilongjiang province, Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia, Turpan in Xinjiang, and Chengdu in Sichuan province. To fight the virus, the cities have all rolled out massive nucleic acid testing programs and three have entered quasi-lockdown mode.

This overview is based on reports by the South China Morning Post, Global Times, China Daily and Shanghai Daily.