Xi refuses to use Western vaccines

Xi Jinping is refusing to use Western vaccines despite warnings that up to two million people could die in China if he ditches the country’s hardline zero-Covid policy.

The Chinese president is “unwilling to take a better vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron”, said Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence.

The country is at particular risk because it has relatively low vaccination rates among the elderly, and a lack of herd immunity.

In a paper published by the Shanghai Journal of Preventive Medicine, Zhou Jiatong, head of the Centre for Disease Control in China’s Guangxi region, said mainland China faces more than two million deaths if it loosens Covid restrictions in the same way Hong Kong did earlier this year.