China continues to lag badly behind the United States in mass vaccinations against COVID-19 despite beginning as early as July 2020 while the Americans only started doing so in December.
The National Health Commission on Saturday announced health authorities around China had administered 70 million vaccinations as of March 20. This represents an increase of only five million vaccinations since NHC revealed a national total of 65 million vaccinations on March 15, or only one million vaccinations per day.
In late November, China said it had vaccinated close to a million of its citizens since July with its three vaccine candidates, the largest number anywhere in the world at the time.
By the end of February, China said it had administered 52.5 million vaccine doses. Government health experts admitted China's vaccination campaign has been slower than many other countries, including the U.S.
Part of the slow domestic vaccination pace is due to China's decision to provide 10 times more doses to foreign countries than the number it distributed at home as part of a "vaccine diplomacy" aimed at boosting its stock in developing countries.
Four Chinese-made vaccines are currently being used to inoculate the Chinese and foreign populations.
These vaccines are the two-dose "BBIBP-CorV" from Sinopharm, the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products; "CoronaVac" from Sinovac Biotech Ltd.; the one dose "Ad5-nCoV" (Convidicea) from CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and "ZF2001" (RBD-Dimer) from Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
In contrast, the U.S. has vaccinated a total of 116 million persons since their disjointed vaccination campaign began in December under the Trump administration. On Friday, President Joe Biden proudly announced his administration had achieved its aim of 100 million vaccinations but in only 58 days instead of his target of 100 days.
The U.S. is vaccinating an average of 2.2 million persons per day -- the largest daily number in the world -- and set a record of 3.2 million vaccinations in a single day on March 14.
"I'm proud to announce that tomorrow (Friday), 58 days into our administration, we will have met our goal," said Biden.
"Today, 65% of people aged 65 or older have received at least one shot, and 36% are fully vaccinated," according to Biden. "And that's key -- because this is a population that represents 80% of the well over 500,000 COVID-19 deaths that have occurred in America."
Biden said the U.S. is "way ahead of schedule, but we've got a long way to go."
