The coronavirus pandemic once again hit hard in China, where the lifting of the “Covid Zero” laws caused the disease to return with force to the Asian nation. Although they have vaccines, they are not of the same quality as those of several other countries in the world, so thousands of citizens of this country traveled to Hong Kong and Macao to be inoculated with international sera.
One of the measures that were lifted when China ended with one of the strongest anti-covid laws was the opening of borders, which coincided with a time close to Lunar New Year, in which internal and external travel is very large. However, one of the situations that the Beijing government did not expect to happen was that several of its citizens traveled to neighboring nations to receive bivalent vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech, which have mRNA technology..
Originally, one of the most attractive points for the inhabitants of China is that this type of serum was free, both for locals and visitors. Although, due to the “growing demand”, the governments of both cities canceled this measure and now foreigners must pay for the vaccines. These two places are not the only ones where similar situations occur, since in Thailand and Singapore they also reported an increase in visitors from the neighboring nation in various clinics.
The prices they charge per vaccine range from HK$1,300 to HK$2,000, which would be the equivalent of £136 to £209. Also, several pages appeared on the Internet of the Asian giantand there were travel packages: “An expert guide, appointments to be inoculated, an itinerary of various activities, reception at the border and other services”.
the elderly in china
This increase in infections that occurs in China Xi Jinping’s government is very concerned because one of the most vulnerable groups is the elderly, who on several occasions they do not have any dose against this disease, partly out of fear and partly because of the way in which the serum was distributed at the time.
Now, with the arrival of the Lunar New Year, which marks a great increase in the internal journey of China to visit family, they fear that more rural sectors and those with elderly populations will suffer new spikes in infections, which could be fatal for those towns.