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As protests flare up in Chinese cities, the country’s government has promised to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to better protect its citizens from the virus and to pull back on unpopular „zero COVID“ policies.
Health officials said on Tuesday that the country would be ramping up vaccine rollout for elderly people, Reuters reported.
But hesitancy to use Western vaccine technology may be hampering China’s response to the pandemic, leading to harsh COVID-19 restrictions that have sparked rare demonstrations in major cities.
Public health experts told Insider that China’s strict „zero-COVID“ policies which require many people to show negative PCR tests when they want to go out in public aren’t a long-term solution. Anthony Fauci, the US‘ top disease expert, called them „draconian.“
Worse, the measures sparked major protests in the country over the weekend with demonstrators fighting back against the country’s restrictions that have put entire cities on lockdown when an infection spreads.
The demonstrations are the biggest protests the country has seen since the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
The low vaccination rate in China, namely among old people, is a major driving force behind the strict COVID policies, NBC News reported.
