This question regarding the effectiveness of the Chinese Vaccine resurfaced after at least 17 locations across China have been affected by the outbreak at Nanjing Lukou Airport, with more than 180 confirmed cases linked to Nanjing.
Jiangsu Province accounts for 20 of the 24 new local cases reported yesterday, Sichuan Province for three, and Beijing for one. Until the 29th of July.
The following are the main worries about the epidemic:
- Will the outbreak spiral out of control or worsen?
- What level of protection does the vaccine provide?
- When will the outbreak be over?
Will the outbreak spiral out of control or worsen?
There have been no new community-spread cases without a source outside the airport, indicating that the outbreak is still under control. If no further second and third-generation cases are reported in the provinces and cities in the next 1-2 weeks, the present outbreak will be contained to Nanjing.
More airport-related cases in the Lukou region of Nanjing, but no community cases without a source in other sections of Nanjing, indicating that the city is still in the pre-dispersion phase. Nanjing has implemented stringent preventive and control measures, and if the efforts are effective, the situation can be resolved in a matter of weeks.
What level of protection does the vaccine provide?
People can become infected after receiving the vaccine, as happened this time in Nanjing and last time in Guangzhou. However, if the vaccine is not available, the number of illnesses could be substantially greater.
Wang Huaqing (Chief Expert of the Immunization Program of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention):
There is no 100% protection rate for any of the vaccines now on the market, and they may fail due to individual factors or vaccine characteristics. According to the current phase III clinical trials, vaccination has a protective impact on most people; some people will not become sick, and serious diseases or fatalities will be avoided. Chile tested the vaccine's protective power in a population inoculated with an inactivated Chinese vaccine during a national mass immunization from February 2 to May 1 of this year. The inactivated Chinese vaccination was highly efficient in avoiding severe morbidity, hospitalization, and death caused by COVID-19.
These findings suggest that, even if everyone is vaccinated, COVID-19 will still be there in the future, but the prevalence will be lower, and sickness and death rates would be lower.
When will the outbreak be over?
There is a growing consensus that the epidemic will not cease soon, and most likely not in the long run. The Nanjing outbreak has once again demonstrated how resilient viruses could be. Each country has its own response to how the world will cope with the pandemic.
China has previously provided a positive response, and we will undoubtedly learn more following the Nanjing epidemic. China’s path in the future must be to achieve global interoperability, restore normalcy, and safeguard its citizens from the virus’s terror.
