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WHO approves China's Sinopharm vaccine in potential boost to COVAX pipeline

33 Comments
By Stephanie Nebehay

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The Pfizer vaccine is coming to Japan shortly. I'd rather wait for that than anything made in China.

Trust China? Fat chance.

9 ( +17 / -8 )

Had China allowed the WHO and American medical experts into Wuhan much, much earlier from the start, the death and harm inflicted on the world could have been reduced greatly.

As far as any vaccines China produces, China should produce it and distribute it freely, especially to countries like India which are suffering the most.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

They owe the world for this horror. Give it out free.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

China allowed WHO to approve this vaccine?

5 ( +6 / -1 )

WHO approves China's Sinopharm vaccine

That is no surprise. The WHO has been doing the CCPs bidding from the start and would approve anything that the CCP wants it to approve.

For all practical purposes the WHO is the CHO, so take that approval for what it is worth.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Predictable.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Does it has something to do with the recent move as a bargaining chip?

China likely to approve BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine by July - WSJ

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-likely-approve-biontechs-covid-19-vaccine-by-july-wsj-2021-04-16/

While promoting home products overseas, Beijing is importing and approving foreign vaccines for domestic use. I wonder why they first use own home vax to the Chinese public if the supply is still short at home. I suspect that foreign vax is available only for certain groups of people.

Communist-patriot Chinese elites should volunteer to take homegrown jabs. It may be controversial if Xi and other leaders are taking a Pfizer.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

WHO approves anything from China.

3 ( +10 / -7 )

"And wait you will."

Yeah, maybe a month or two, but I've been waiting for more than a year so far.

What's really weird is how quickly and willingly people are to trust China. After all, China wouldn't let the WHO or experts on disease control into Wuhan when they could have and should have. On top of that, the Chinese government knew how bad it was and banned travel and had lock downs in place all over China while at the same time it was allowing its citizens to fly to major cities around the globe to spread misfortune. Trust China? Fat chance.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

(As of March) China has approved five home-made vaccines for domestic use, but none of them have published late-stage trial data in peer-reviewed medical journals proving that they are effective. The two entities have yet to release any data from Phase III clinical trials.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I can't trust WHO anymore after their whole fiasco at the start of the pandemic... it was clear that they were being influenced by China, so my trust in China's vaccine is quite low even if WHO approves of it.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Someone has been cherry picking words here.

With the Chinese and a number of other vaccines, you will still get infected and sick, but 22% will still have mild to severe symptoms. It reduces Mild to severe cases by 78%, but even this is debatable as in Brazil it was as low as 50.4%

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55642648

Last week researchers at the Butantan Institute, which has been conducting the trials in Brazil, announced that the vaccine had a 78% efficacy against "mild-to-severe" Covid-19 cases.

> With the inclusion of this data, the efficacy rate is now 50.4%, said researchers.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have over a 90+% reduction in outright infection rates.

I know which I'm going for . . . . .

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I'd rather wait for that than anything made in China

And wait you will

1 ( +7 / -6 )

"China has already been making its vaccines available worldwide, . . . "

Yeah, it's what you call damage control. They know that it came from Wuhan, they knew how dangerous it was, they didn't allow anybody in to help and they let their people carry this plague all over the globe. Now China wants to hear compliments from the global community about how wonderful it is? Fat chance.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

When you read the evidence assessment document for the Sinopharm vaccine, prepared by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, you see an effective vaccine (78%) but little safety data which WHO acknowledges. I don't doubt that the efficacy outweighs any safety risks, but it is obvious how much more stringent and sophisticated the U.S. regulatory process is compared with China's which invites a lot more concern about their vaccines than those regulated by FDA and CDC.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

@BigYen

To tell you the truth, I don't think the Chinese government released the coronavirus intentionally as some people. However, I do think it came from a Chinese lab. Maybe somebody working there sold one of the lab rats or bats for a few extra bucks and it somehow got into the human food chain. Negligence plain and simple. Then once it was a Chinese problem, the government, for selfish reasons, thought, "Well, we're better off if everybody else has this problem too, so let's just let this awful virus spread." Hence, the lockdown on travel within China, while hundreds of thousands of Chinese were free to go to any country in the world. Of course China never admitted this and even blamed the U.S. in some kind of North Korean style mockery of the truth.

If China does have a safe and effective vaccine, and one that hasn't been tested on the Uighur people or political prisoners, then, by all means, send it off to India for free. At the same time, who can say for sure how their vaccines have been tested? Not I, but you seem to have no problem swallowing whatever they say. They've lied from the start, so forgive me for being skeptical. I'm the same way with people. If you lie to me once, I'll be more doubtful of anything you say or do after that.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

If the Chinese come calling with a vaccine that works, of course poorer countries are going to take them up on it.

It sucks to be poor.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

If someone has a vaccine that does the business, I'll go for it. This is beyond politics.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I think with SARS, MERS, COVID. The cause of problem comes from one country. Focusing on vaccine is not root of true problem. Until we get to cause and why it keeps happening, you will never solve anything. Vaccine is just band-aid.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@BigYen

Good argument. So, basically, your saying that beggars can't be choosers and that any assistance is better than no assistance. I can agree with some things you laid out in your response, however, I am still a little at odds on a few points.

BigYen: "If your intention is to impugn the motives of the government of China, then I think that my understanding of why they're supplying vaccines to poorer countries does no that more effectively than yours does."

Why? Why are they supplying vaccines to poorer countries? Because they're a nation of Eagle Scouts? I still question their motives. If China had really been concerned about poorer countries, the government would have reacted speedily right from the start. Instead China dragged their feet or even slammed the door shut, let their people leave from China to visit foreign countries freely (at the same time having very strict lockdowns within its own borders) and prevented the outside world from assisting & seeing what was really happening at ground zero. China was like a vast virus spewing Chernobyl, and they kept the outside world completely in the dark about how serious it was. This situation that we're all in (including all of the poorest countries) didn't need to happen and shouldn't have happened. It makes one shudder to think about what's down the road. Bad behavior has to recognized for what it is and this isn't the first time China has done something like this as we witnessed back in 2003 with the SARS epidemic. China should indeed help those poor countries out and apologize at the same time, but that isn't enough. China has to be more responsible the next time this kind of virus outbreak occurs . . . right from the start, not a few months later when the whole house is on fire.

This shouldn't have happened (again) and the sad thing is this will more than likely happen again, and maybe it'll be worse. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that it wasn't worse than this and that a vaccine was discovered so quickly.

I hope this doesn't happen again, but nobody knows. We're all in this together which means we must cooperate as one and help one another . . . from the very start, not months later when it's too late. Quick, efficient & effective response has to be the rule for all countries, especially China.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

“It sucks to be poor.”

It sure does.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

After all, China wouldn't let the WHO or experts on disease control into Wuhan when they could have and should have

You have different information to me. They went there and did thorough investigations. Western propaganda obviously tricked you. It is true that western investigators were not given access to certain highly top secret research sites, but there was no connection to SARS-CoV-2. Its like Russia asking to have unlimited access to Porton down Biological Weapons Facility to inspect the UKs stockpile of Norichok...

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

"You have different information to me. They went there and did thorough investigations. Western propaganda obviously tricked you."

I wouldn't be so sure about that it. Here's an interesting excerpt from highly respected reporter Bob Woodward in his book "Rage". it reads as follows:

"Dr. Fauci gave high marks to Matt Pottinger for realizing China's deceit. Going back to late January, Fauci and Pottinger had a serious conversation about how China had covered up the 2003 SARS epidemic, not telling the public the truth for three months after the outbreak. Fauci publicly said China had been 'egregiously nontransparent' during SARS. For Pottinger, the new virus (coronavirus) fit the old pattern. China was doing it again. 'They're the source of it,' Pottinger said. 'You know you can(t believe anything they say. I know them. I was a reporter there. They're all lying. They're full of crap. It's worse than they're really saying.' Pottinger said he had a doctor friend in China with impeccable credentials and access to solid information who was passing it on. The doctor said, 'Don't believe their numbers. They're all lying to you.' . . . When the pandemic later exploded, Fauci said, 'Wait a minute. Matt was right all along This thing is really out of control.' "

Bob Woodward, "Rage"

I'll take anything Dr. Fauci and the other experts or doctors have to say over what you've got to say any day of the week.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"So what? Do you think those countries care?"

Those countries care a lot more than the Chinese government ever did or does. Those countries didn't try to sweep the coronavirus under the rug until it was too late to take decisive action, but China did. It's like an arsonist who's burned your house down and is later discovered, so, because they want to pretend that they feel bad about it and make themselves feel better and look better in everybody's eyes, later offer you a fire hose when it's way, way too late.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Efficacy 79%. That means, after two shots still 9.61% like not vaccinated, even after a third shot still 3%. Maybe, I’ll better ram the hold fridge in my arm muscles to get really vaccinated in that case. lol

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

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