BioNTech produces 10 times more antibodies than China's Sinovac: study

I spend a lot of time surfing the web, reading about what is going on. There have been multiple studies that have shown that the Chinese vaccine has an efficacy rate of less than 50%. It does not give me pleasure to cite that statistic, since it would be better for everyone if all the vaccines so far released had efficacy rates in the 90 percentile range, but we need to face the facts. The facts are that the Chinese vaccine has saved lives, but is not good enough to prevent a surge in Covid cases.

We have many relatives in Mexico, where many people got early shots of the Chinese vaccine. Today, the pandemic is swamping Mexico. Only 20+ percent of the population is fully vaccinated, and many of them with the Chinese vaccine, so it is as if only 11 or 12 percent got fully vaccinated. Besides that, Mexico followed Britain's example of emphasizing getting one shot into arms, instead of two. Even with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, one shot is better than getting the Chinese vaccine, but one shot gives far less protection than two.

Of course, with an efficacy of 40% or so that vaccine is of no real use.

The point in the article is that definitely is of very real use, 40% protection is huge in comparison with no protection. Compared with the best vaccines available it comes well behind, but compared with not vaccinating it is still a much better option.

But on the other side we have here an interesting paradox, as the countries using it have less infection rates and less pandemic problems on average.

What makes you have that idea? As mentioned countries like Mexico and Brazil are using it and they have huge problems with the pandemic.

There is no mystery, the pathogen has a very high rate of transmission which is why huge efforts are necessary to stop it without unnecessary deaths, that is what pathogens are adapted to do, no real need of anything above a computer and access to internet to find out this.

All sources that I have read or heard all say that the Chinese vac is far less effective than any of the others.

Figures.

I think the quality of most things coming out of China is about 40% compared to the west.

https://g1.globo.com/sp/ribeirao-preto-franca/noticia/2021/07/14/serrana-sp-completa-16-dias-sem-mortes-por-covid-19-apontam-dados-da-saude.ghtml

Serrana, SP, completa 16 dias sem mortes por Covid-19, apontam dados da Saúde

Brazilian city Serrana completes 16 days without deaths by Covid-19 after entire adult population got Sinovac shot

That is real word data.

But since the Chinese vaccine does not only target one protein, it is expected to be less affected by current and future variants.

Not really, it is already less efficient than other vaccines so reducing its efficacy further means it will become much less effective. Also since the only neutralizing activity identified is against the spike protein that still means all the other antibodies that the Sinovac vaccine can produce make no difference. By definition being non-neutralizing means the virion could be covered by them without affecting its ability to infect.

On the other hand those other antibodies increase the risk of recognizing something naturally present in the body, so it would not be surprising to find out it could produce problems because of autoimmunity.

Or more simply, the problem with Sinovac is that it make the body produce antibodies that are not useful and can become harmful.

Of course, with an efficacy of 40% or so that vaccine is of no real use. But on the other side we have here an interesting paradox, as the countries using it have less infection rates and less pandemic problems on average. It’s maybe a false conclusion or wrong causality, but it’s interesting anyway and surely worth some deeper digging, especially about which (other) factors might influence the occurrence of next waves and higher infection rates. I mean, there must be something still undetected what drives the pandemic again and again although health and medical systems are much more advanced, much better vaccines are in use and the vaccination percentage rates are also already quite high. I don’t have the money and resources to find out that alone, so it’s someone other’s turn. Go for it.

But since the Chinese vaccine does not only target one protein, it is expected to be less affected by current and future variants.

Also, it appears that the actual effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines is not as high as advertised.