China Gives Covid-19 Shots to More Than 1 Billion People

What’s new: China has given at least one Covid-19 vaccination shot to more than 1 billion of its 1.4 billion population as the country moves to offer booster injections to fend off the fast-evolving pathogen.

As of Monday, China administered doses to 1.09 billion people, or 77.6% of the population, Wu Liang, a deputy head of the National Health Commission’s disease control department, said Tuesday at a press conference. Among them, nearly 970 million were fully vaccinated with two shots.

About 162 million doses of Covid vaccines have been given to minors ages 12 to 17, Wu said.

More to know: The health authority recently said it would allow some groups of people at higher risk, including those 60 or older, to take a booster shot six months after full vaccination. The decision was based on data from domestic vaccine makers Sinovac and Sinopharm on the performance of their inactivated-virus vaccines after six months, said Zheng Zhongwei, a senior researcher at the commission.

China is also collecting data and studying the use of vaccines based on other technologies for booster shots

China has been racing to expand vaccinations to contain the pandemic, especially after recent flareups in several cities in one of the country’s worst outbreaks.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use. To read the full story in Chinese, click here.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com)

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