Chinese authorities are going door to door and paying people over 60 to have a coronavirus vaccination but, despite a surge in cases, many are alarmed by stories of fevers, blood clots and other side-effects.
Li Liansheng, 64, who had been vaccinated before he caught Covid-19, said: “When people hear about such incidents, they may not be willing to take the vaccines.”
A few days after his 10-day bout with the virus, Mr Li is nursing a sore throat and cough. He said it was like a “normal cold” with a mild fever.
China has joined other countries in treating cases instead of trying to stamp out virus transmission by dropping or easing rules on testing, quarantine and movement as it tries to reverse an economic slump. But the shift has flooded hospitals with feverish, wheezing patients.
The National Health Commission announced a campaign on November 29 to increase the vaccination rate among older Chinese, which health experts say is crucial to avoiding a healthcare crisis.
It is also the biggest hurdle before the ruling Communist Party can lift the last of the world’s most stringent anti-virus restrictions.
China kept case numbers low for two years with a “zero-Covid” strategy that isolated cities and confined millions of people to their homes. Now, as it relaxes that approach, it is facing the widespread outbreaks that other countries have already gone through.
The health commission has recorded only six Covid-19 deaths this month, taking the country’s official toll to 5,241. That is despite multiple reports by families of relatives dying.
China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official Covid-19 toll, a health official said last week. That unusually narrow definition excludes many deaths other countries would attribute to coronavirus.
Experts have forecast between one million and two million deaths in China before the end of 2023.
Mr Li, who was exercising in the leafy grounds of central Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, said he is considering getting a second booster due to the publicity campaign: “As long as we know the vaccine won’t cause big side-effects, we should take it.”
Neighbourhood committees that form the lowest level of government have been ordered to find everyone 65 and older and keep track of their health. They are doing what state media call the “ideological work” of lobbying residents to persuade elderly relatives to get vaccinated.
The Liulidun neighbourhood of the Chinese capital is promising people over 60 up to 500 yuan (nearly £60) to get a two-dose vaccination course and one booster.
The National Health Commission announced on December 23 that the number of people being vaccinated daily had more than doubled to 3.5 million nationwide. But that is still a small fraction of the tens of millions of jabs that were being administered every day in early 2021.
Older people are put off by potential side-effects of Chinese-made vaccines, for which the government has not announced results of testing on people in their 60s and older.
Mr Li said a 55-year-old friend suffered fevers and blood clots after being vaccinated. He said they cannot be sure the jab was to blame, but his friend is reluctant to get another.
“It’s also said the virus keeps mutating,” Mr Li said. “How do we know if the vaccines we take are useful?”
Some people are reluctant because they have diabetes, heart problems and other health complications, despite warnings from experts that it is even more urgent for them to be vaccinated because the risks of Covid-19 are more serious than potential vaccine side-effects in almost everyone.
A 76-year-old man taking his daily walk around the Temple of Heaven with the aid of a stick said he wants to be vaccinated but has diabetes and high blood pressure. He said he wears masks and tries to avoid crowds.
Older people also feel little urgency because low case numbers before the latest surge meant few faced risk of infection. That earlier lack of infections, however, left China with few people who have developed antibodies against the virus.
Jiang Shibo, of the Fudan University medical school in Shanghai, said: “Now, the families and relatives of the elderly people should make it clear to them that an infection can cause serious illness and even death.”
More than 90% of people in China have been vaccinated but only about two-thirds of the over-80s, according to the National Health Commission.
According to its 2020 census, China has 191 million people aged 65 and over — a group that, on its own, would be the eighth most populous country, ahead of Bangladesh.
“Coverage rates for people aged over 80 still need to be improved,” Shanghai news outlet The Paper said. “The elderly are at high risk.”
