Thu December, 2020, Age: 3 years
China’s vaccines were meant to score a clear diplomatic win for Beijing, shoring up ties with dozens of poorer nations amid an anticipated shortage of Western-developed shots. But there has been little information about how the Chinese versions have fared in final-stage clinical trials, with just the United Arab Emirates and China itself endorsing the vaccines for emergency use so far.
On China’s side is mathematics. The challenge of manufacturing, distributing and administering billions of doses means many developing nations may have little choice but to use Chinese vaccines for at least part of their populations. But as vaccines have become politicized throughout the world, skepticism over the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines–which have not been proven by transparent testing data in the same way that Western vaccines have been–is rising.
