Dissecting the early Covid-19 cases in Wuhan: Michael Worobey

‘With SARS, live-animal markets continued to sell infected animals for many months, allowing zoonotic spillover to be established as the origin and revealing multiple independent jumps from animals into humans. Unfortunately, no live mammal collected at Huanan Market or any other live-animal market in Wuhan has been screened for SARS-CoV-2–related viruses, and Huanan Market was closed and disinfected on 1 January 2020. Nevertheless, that most early symptomatic cases were linked to Huanan Market—specifically to the western section where raccoon dogs were caged—provides strong evidence of a live-animal market origin of the pandemic.

‘This would explain the extraordinary preponderance of early COVID-19 cases at one of the handful of sites in Wuhan—population 11 million—that sell some of the same animals that brought us SARS. Although it may never be possible to recover related viruses from animals if they were not sampled at the time of emergence, conclusive evidence of a Huanan Market origin from infected wildlife may nonetheless be obtainable through analysis of spatial patterns of early cases and from additional genomic data, including SARS-CoV-2–positive samples from Huanan Market, as well as through integration of additional epidemiologic data. Preventing future pandemics depends on this effort.’

Read here (Science, Nov 16, 2021)

Why China is still trying to achieve zero Covid

‘Dr Zhong Nanshan is seen as something of a medical hero in China. The specialist in respiratory medicine shot to global fame in 2003 for challenging the then-government's line that the Sars outbreak was not so severe. These days, people - including officials - listen to what he has to say.

‘In a recent interview, he said China's strict Covid amelioration measures would remain for "a rather long time". He added that a global Covid-19 mortality rate of 2% was too high for China to accept even with vaccines in place. The cost of opening too quickly was not worth it, he said, adding that China would be watching the experience of other countries under their "living-with-Covid" plans.

‘It is also important to consider that China's officials can be quite conservative in their approach. It is possible that they plan to "re-open" the country again and are simply in no great rush to do so.’

Read here (BBC, Nov 15, 2021) 

China stands firm on ‘dynamic zero case’ Covid policy

‘China will continue its “dynamic zero-case” policy to cut off virus transmission as early as possible, although most countries have adopted a “living with Covid-19 virus” strategy, health officials and infectious disease specialists say. In the latest epidemic wave which started in China on October 16, more than 1,000 cases have been reported across 21 provinces, mainly in the northeastern region.

‘The number may seem insignificant when compared with those in Western countries, which have reported tens of thousands of cases daily, but top Chinese leaders said the country would not tolerate virus outbreaks as anti-epidemic work was an important political mission.’

Read here (AsiaTimes, Nov 15, 2021)

China takes the lead at international forum tackling Covid-19 vaccine inequality

‘Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledges more technology transfers and production agreements to get vaccines to developing countries. The UN estimates 11 billion more doses are needed to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world’s population against the disease.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 6, 2021)

How China used the media to spread its Covid narrative — and win friends around the world

‘Over half of the 50 nations surveyed at the end of 2020 reported coverage of China had become more positive in their national media since the onset of the pandemic, while less than a quarter reported it had become increasingly negative.

‘The change was most favorable in Europe, which scored 6.3 on a scale of one to ten, where one is the most negative and ten is the most positive. China’s image plummeted in North America, coming in at 3.5.

‘The overall increase in positivity coincided with an uptick in Chinese outreach. Three-quarters of the journalists we surveyed said China had a visible presence in their national media, compared to 64% in a previous survey we conducted for IFJ in 2019.’

Read here (Nieman Lab, May 14, 2021)

Are China’s Covid shots less effective? Experts size up Sinovac

‘The good news is the vaccines work extremely well in combating severe Covid infections, according to Fiona Russell from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne and Paul Griffin, a professor from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. We asked them key questions about the merits of the Sinovac shot. Their comments have been edited and condensed for brevity.

‘How effective is the Sinovac vaccine really?

‘Russell: The Sinovac study was to look at how the vaccine works against the entire range of clinical symptoms, from mild infections to severe ones, including death. The efficacy data of about 50% is for very mild disease, requiring no treatment. For infections requiring some medical intervention, it’s about 84% and for moderate-to-severe Covid cases, it’s 100%.’

Read here (Bloomberg, Apr 14, 2021)

Official: Chinese vaccines’ effectiveness low

‘In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to give them a boost. Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

‘Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses in other countries while also trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of Western vaccines. “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.’

Read here (AP News, Apr 11, 2021)

How Covid-19 vaccines are being weaponised as countries jostle for influence

‘A new hybrid Cold War is underway, with US, China and pivotal states engaging in a power play, says NUS Business School’s Alex Capri...

‘[V]accine diplomacy has shed light on an even more fundamental truth: A hybrid cold war is underway, involving the US, China and other pivotal states. Its by-product is hybrid warfare, a mix of diplomatic, economic, cyber and information-related actions, all of which fall below the threshold of armed conflict but are, nonetheless, disruptive to the workings of the international system.

‘There will be no returning to the kind of globalisation the world experienced over the past four decades. Consequently, state and non-state actors must adapt.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Apr 8, 2021)

Vaccinating Asia: How does world's largest continent immunise 4.5 billion people in shortest time possible?

‘It is a critical issue as the world rushes to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus. How does the largest continent in the world immunise 4.5 billion people in the shortest time possible? The Straits Times bureaus find out in this special report.’

• Grappling with myriad challenges on path towards Covid-19 immunity
• Midwives and soldiers in Indonesia mobilised to support country's inoculation drive
• Millions of undocumented migrants in Malaysia keen on Covid-19 jab but wary of arrest
• Filipinos in search of coveted 'Covid-19 passport'
• India's greatest challenge lies in vaccinating rural villages
• Quality and quantity of Covid-19 vaccines in China hamper inoculation drive
• Hong Kong's Covid-19 vaccination drive zips ahead despite woes
• South Korean govt draws flak for not mandating Covid-19 vaccine holiday after roll-out delay
• South Korean man, Singaporean fiancee inoculated ahead of May wedding
• Japan's chequered past with vaccines raises fresh fears
• No rush for Covid-19 jab in Taiwan, given fears over side effects
• Religious, community groups, experts clear doubts about Covid-19 jabs in Singapore
• Church webinar in S'pore convinces senior to take Covid-19 jab
• Tapping TikTok videos and social media influencers to spread information on vaccines in Singapore
• MCI officers create skits, dances on TikTok to debunk Covid-19 myths
• Foodcourt chat to allay fears about Covid-19 shots among Singaporeans

Read here (Straits Times, Apr 2, 2021) 

China’s exotic farms may be a missing link behind the pandemic’s leap to people

‘Given that more than a year passed between late 2019, when the disease was linked to the market, and December 2020, when China says it shut down all its food-supplying wildlife farms, acquiring such evidence may prove impossible. Still, filling in gaps about how the virus may have leaped to humans is essential for understanding the COVID-19 pandemic and combating future zoonotic diseases.

‘Yunnan, the southern Chinese province where many of the now-shuttered wildlife farms are located, is also where virologists found a bat virus almost identical to the coronavirus circulating in humans. Some wildlife farms sold animals that can be infected with other coronaviruses, including civets, so scientists suspect that these species may also be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “Potentially, some of these animals were infected at those farms and then brought the virus into the market,” Peter Ben Embarek, the Danish food safety scientist heading WHO’s delegation, told Science in February, after he and the WHO team returned from China, adding that more testing was needed.’

Read here (National Geographic, Mar 25, 2021)

Lab leak: A scientific debate mired in politics — and unresolved

‘More than a year into the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, some scientists say the possibility of a lab leak never got a fair look...

‘As it stands now, pandemic preparedness faces two simultaneous fronts. On the one hand, the world has experienced numerous pandemic and epidemic outbreaks in the last 20 years, including SARS, chikungunya, H1N1, Middle East Respiratory virus, several Ebola outbreaks, three outbreaks of norovirus, Zika, and now SARS-CoV-2. Speaking of coronaviruses, says Ralph Baric, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “it’s hard to imagine there aren’t variants” in bats with mortality rates approaching MERS’ 30 percent that also have “a transmissibility that is much more efficient. And that is terrifying.” Baric is emphatic that genetic research with viruses is essential to staying ahead of the threat.

‘Yet according to Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, lab-release dangers are growing as well. The risk increases in proportion with the number of labs handling bioweapons and potential pandemic pathogens (more than 1,500 globally in 2010), he says, many of them, like the Wuhan lab, located in urban areas close to international airports. “The most dramatic expansion has occurred in China during the last four years — driven as an arms-race-style reaction to biodefense expansion in the U.S., Europe, and Japan,” Ebright wrote in an email to Undark. “China opened two new BSL-4 facilities, in Wuhan and in Harbin, in the last four years,” he added, “and has announced plans to establish a network of hundreds of new BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs.”

Read here (Undark, Mar 17, 2021)

Traveling to China just got easier—if you take a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine (Wall Street Journal, Mar 16, 2021)

‘After a year of barring entry by most foreign citizens, China’s government plans to ease restrictions for those who have been inoculated against Covid-19. The hitch for now: Only vaccines made in China will qualify.

‘Chinese embassies in the U.S., Italy, India, the Philippines and other locations say they will provide “visa facilitation” to foreign applicants who can certify that they have received a Chinese shot. To enter China, most travelers also still need to prove they have tested negative for Covid-19, obtain an antibody test, and quarantine upon arrival, according to statements Tuesday.’

Read here (Wall Street Journal, Mar 16, 2021)

BioNTech and Fosun Pharma form Covid-19 vaccine strategic alliance in China

• BioNTech and Fosun Pharma will jointly conduct clinical trials of BNT162 in China, leveraging BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA vaccine technology and Fosun Pharma’s clinical development and commercialization capabilities in China
• Fosun Pharma will commercialize the vaccine in China upon regulatory approval, with BioNTech retaining full rights to develop and commercialize the vaccine in the rest of the world
• Fosun Pharma will pay BioNTech up to USD 135M (EUR 120M) in upfront and potential future investment and milestone payments; the two companies will share future gross profits from the sale of the vaccine in China

Read here (BioNTech press statement, Mar 16, 2021)

Coronavirus vaccine: China can meet demand ‘at home and abroad’

‘China is giving priority to coronavirus inoculation campaigns at home but will still be able to honour promises of vaccines for other countries, according to a senior official in charge of producing the doses. Tian Yulong, chief engineer with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said domestic needs had taken precedence but with expanded production of four approved vaccines, he was confident that China would be able to meet the combined demand of domestic inoculation, foreign aid and exports.

“We have successfully met demand to give out more than 64 million doses at home. We have also had good feedback about our exports and foreign aid,” Tian said in Beijing on Monday.

Read here (South China Morning Post, Mar 15, 2021)

In 2018, diplomats warned of risky Coronavirus experiments in a Wuhan lab. No one listened

‘Knowing the significance of the Wuhan virologists’ discovery, and knowing that the WIV’s top-level biosafety laboratory (BSL-4) was relatively new, the U.S. Embassy health and science officials in Beijing decided to go to Wuhan and check it out. In total, the embassy sent three teams of experts in late 2017 and early 2018 to meet with the WIV scientists, among them Shi Zhengli, often referred to as the “bat woman” because of her extensive experience studying coronaviruses found in bats.

‘When they sat down with the scientists at the WIV, the American diplomats were shocked by what they heard. The Chinese researchers told them they didn’t have enough properly trained technicians to safely operate their BSL-4 lab. The Wuhan scientists were asking for more support to get the lab up to top standards...

‘Taken together, those two points—a particularly dangerous groups of viruses being studied in a lab with real safety problems—were intended as a warning about a potential public-health crisis, one of the cable writers told me. They kept the cables unclassified because they wanted more people back home to be able to read and share them, according to the cable writer. But there was no response from State Department headquarters and they were never made public. And as U.S.-China tensions rose over the course of 2018, American diplomats lost access to labs such as the one at the WIV.’

Read here (Politico, March 8, 2021)

China to issue ‘health certificates’ for travel; open to vaccinate athletes for Games: Foreign Minister

‘China said on Sunday (March 7) that it would be issuing "health certificates" - an apparent first step to a global health passport - to allow for international travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The country is also open to working with the International Olympic Committee to immunise athletes taking part in the sporting event.

‘It would also be setting up regional vaccination sites to inoculate its citizens overseas, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at his annual press conference.’

Read here (Straits Times, Mar 7, 2021)

China’s vaccine diplomacy falls flat in the Philippines

‘The Philippines has finally kicked off its Covid-19 vaccine rollout with much-publicized donations from China but rising controversies around the rollout will prevent Beijing from declaring a “vaccine diplomacy” win.

‘China recently delivered 600,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the Beijing-based company Sinovac Biotech and frontliners across the country are set to be among the primary beneficiaries. The drive kicks off as the Philippines grapples with one of the region’s worst outbreaks and steepest economic recessions caused by extended lockdowns.’

Read here (Asia Times, Mar 4, 2021)

China approves two more domestic Covid-19 vaccines for public use

‘China’s medical products regulator said on Thursday that it had approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for public use, raising the number of domestically produced vaccines that can be used in China to four. The two newly cleared vaccines are made by CanSino Biologics Inc (CanSinoBIO) and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).

‘They join a vaccine from Sinovac Biotech approved earlier this month, and another from Sinopharm’s Beijing unit approved last year.

‘Prior to formal approval for wider public use by the National Medical Products Administration, millions of doses of the two Sinopharm vaccines and Sinovac shot had been administered in China’s vaccination program. The program targets select groups of people facing a higher risk of infection.’

Read here (Reuters, Feb 25, 2021)

Power jab: The rise of vaccine diplomacy

‘At the end of January the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, gave a speech on the tarmac of Santiago airport. ‘Today is a day of joy, excitement and hope,’ he said, standing in front of a Boeing 787 which had just arrived from Beijing. Inside it were two million vaccine doses produced by the Chinese company Sinovac. It was the first of two similar-sized shipments arriving that month.

‘A few days earlier, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had emerged from Covid confinement to thank a ‘genuinely affectionate’ Vladimir Putin for pledging 24 million Sputnik doses to Mexico in the coming months. Hopes of vaccinating his country with the Pfizer vaccine had dissipated when supply dried up. Pfizer blamed ‘global shortages’, but here was the perfect opportunity for Putin to play the hero and to send the world a message: in times of need, Moscow, not Washington, saves the day.

‘This is vaccine diplomacy, the new great game. Nations which are hungry to compete with the West — and especially America — are using their homegrown coronavirus vaccines as a way of gaining influence. They are exchanging their vaccines for loyalty and acts of public obeisance.’

Read here (The Spectator, Feb 20, 2021)

NY Times lies to say WHO investigators dissatisfied with Chinese cooperation

This story carries the rebuttals on Twitter by two WHO expert-team members, Peter Daszak, British zoologist, and Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist. It also provides a background to the story, quoting various findings elsewhere in the world. The earlier studies suggest that the Covid-19 virus could have circulated in Europe before it surfaced in Wuhan. 

Read here (Scoop NZ, Feb 15, 2021)