‘Chinese-made vaccine able to fight all mutations’
Chinese military infectious disease expert Chen Wei said a COVID-19 vaccine her team produced can be effective against all existing mutations of the novel coronavirus, noting that they are preparing for mass vaccination at a low price whenever phase three clinical trial results come out.
“We have complete IP rights of this vaccine, which means we do not have to rely on others and can carry out our own research and development (R&D),” said Chen, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a researcher at the Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences, in an interview with Xinhua News Agency released on Monday.
She noted that “we can also allow Chinese people to get vaccinated at a low price whenever they need it.”
The remarks came amid groundless reports from Western media claiming that China is stealing the US’ research data on COVID-19 vaccines.
Chinese medical experts rebutted the allegations and stressed that China is actually leading in COVID-19 vaccine R&D, not to mention that the two countries are focusing on different routes.
Undoubtedly China is among the first echelon in COVID-19 vaccine R&D as more than half of vaccines entering phase three clinical trials made public by the WHO are developed in China, Chen noted.
The vaccine Chen’s team developed is a recombinant adenovirus vector vaccine named Ad5-nCoV. It is
observers hailed the event as an overarching conclusion to China’s hard-won battle, and said it also injected the greatest confidence in the country, which is on course to rejuvenation as it faces challenges from a complicated situation at home, and extreme attempts from some hegemonic powers to crack down on its development.
The nine-month fight involving 1.4 billion people was written in a 20,000-word article published by the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday. It detailed China’s nine monthslong battle against the virus.
“The government has always put people’s lives first. The viral spread was preliminarily put under control in about one month. New daily increases of local cases dropped to single digits within two months after the outbreak. The virus battle in Wuhan city and Hubei Province, the hardest-hit places in the country, achieved a phased decisive victory within three months,” the Xinhua article said.
Chinese unity
“The fight against COVID-19 shows the unity of the Chinese people when facing difficulties. Beneath the surface of those about to be awarded, many individuals and organizations have shown their dedication in laboratories and in hospital beds, and in fighting the virus day and night without being noticed by media and others,” Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), told the Global Times.
Wuhan doctor Zheng Shuqun has been planning for a long time to take his octogenarian mother to Tibet this year. The plan was shelved at first because of the viral outbreak. He said it would probably have to be permanently canceled.
Zheng said when everyone in China was celebrating the lunar new year in late January, he and his colleagues were going around residential communities within his hospital’s jurisdiction, and testing those who needed to be tested.
“There were not enough protection supplies in late January and early February. The only protection we had was to turn away when patients coughed,” Zheng said.
“Wuhan people are reluctant to call themselves heroes. In fact, we think those who came to help us are much more of heroes than us. We did what we should do to fight the unknown virus. We are ordinary people in unusual times,” Zheng said.
Lasting memories
For Beijing community worker Li Li, reuniting with her “comrade in arms” against the pandemic wasn’t so tearful. But it was touching.
Li said two weeks ago, she took a vacation to have dinner with fellow community workers and volunteers, who fought with her in the past nine months against the virus, “because we want to see each other’s faces without masks. But it turns out we could not recognize each other anymore.”
She joked that “at the early stage of the epidemic, and during the fresh outbreak emerging from Beijing’s Xinfadi food market, everyone was pale, withered and burned out by the pressure. But they have since gained weight, and are aglow with happiness.”
Li remembers vividly that after Beijing’s Xinfadi outbreak, she and her colleagues came to knock on the doors of hundreds of residents in her community compounds, and distributed food to those under quarantine. “I rarely heard complaints from them. They were considerate about community workers as they would try to reduce the time for us to visit, like storing garbage a little longer for disposal later. It was an exhausting job, but it helped me see the neighborhood spirit that was long lost,” Li said.
Qiu Haibo, an expert from the medical treatment group under the National Health Commission, finally arrived home in Nanjing on September 1, after spending 185 days fighting COVID-19 in Wuhan, Harbin, Jilin Province, and Urumqi in Xinjiang, which was the latest Chinese city to announce a return to normal last week.
On Monday, Xinjiang cleared all confirmed COVID-19 cases and asymptomatic carriers and schools in the region reopened on the same day.
Qiu gained fame after netizens posted pictures of him in February, in which he looked much younger with black hair, and another one in March when his hair turned grey. Qiu joked that “it simply means I need a haircut.”
Born and raised in Xinjiang, Qiu told the Global Times that everything in Urumqi makes him feel “homey.” “Thanks to the previous experiences in other cities, the virus battle in Xinjiang was fought in a more scientific, accurate and effective manner.”
As the virus recedes in most places in China, Qiu decided it was time to return his Nanjing home where he now lives, and said “hopefully (the journey to Xinjiang) is the last stop for virus fight this year.”