CoronaVac (Sinovac Biotech vaccine for COVID-19)

2024: Pentagon admits campaign to discredit China's COVID-19 vaccine

At the end of July 2024, it became known that the US Department of Defense admitted to disseminating false information regarding the Chinese vaccine against COVID-19. We are talking about Sinovac.

The US confession followed a Reuters investigation that showed that the Pentagon conducted "secret psychological operations" to discredit Chinese vaccines in 2020 and 2021 - at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Negative information regarding Sinovac was disseminated in the Philippines. Working with a group of defense contractors and other non-military partners, U.S. authorities used fake social media accounts to discredit the Chinese vaccine, according to Reuters. In particular, hundreds of such profiles have been identified on platform X (formerly Twitter).

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It is true that the US Department of Defense distributed messages to Filipinos that questioned the safety and effectiveness of Sinovac, according to a document prepared on the basis of data from the US Department of Defense sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of National Defense of the Philippines.

The text also says that the Pentagon has admitted "some errors in the dissemination of information about COVID-19." According to the document, the American side came to the conclusion that the dissemination of negative information about vaccines does not correspond to the priorities of the United States. It is also noted that the campaign to discredit the Chinese vaccine was aimed at developing countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. However, the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (ESCE) concluded that the Sinovac vaccine "can be safely and effectively used to immunize all persons aged 18 and over."^[1]

2021

China is the first in the world to vaccinate children from 3 years old against COVID-19

At the end of October 2021, China began administering the COVID-19 vaccine to children aged three and over, as the country struggles with the return of the delta variant and more frequent outbreaks of the virus in the state. According to local media in China, vaccination of children aged 3 to 11 years is carried out in many areas of the country.

Vaccines developed by domestic drugmakers Sinovac Biotech state and Sinopharm have previously been applied to children aged 12 and over, and in June 2021, the country gave the green light to use them for children over three years old.

China is the first in the world to vaccinate 9 children from 3 years old against coronavirus

China has one of the highest vaccination rates among major economies, 75% of the country's 1.4 billion residents are fully vaccinated. As of October 26, 2021, a revaccination is already being carried out in China, and adults who received the second doses of the vaccine six months ago are entitled to it. These measures are being taken at a time when China is trying to suppress the last outbreak of the disease, with outbreaks of the virus occurring more often than before the appearance of the delta variant of the coronavirus. Beijing remains true to its COVID-19 intolerance strategy, in which borders remain closed and quarantines apply, even as other countries that initially sought to eliminate the virus begin to move to restore the economy and life with the virus.

Children who are the last group to be vaccinated have become involved in the latest wave of COVID-19 in the delta variant around the world, prompting authorities to health care China consider introducing a vaccine for this category of population. Vaccinations given to children in China use more traditional technology of inactivated vaccines, this is repeatedly emphasized, both by experts and doctors of the highest category of the country.^[2]

50% of people over 80 in Hungary do not develop protective antibodies

A new study published in July 2021^[3]shows that the vaccine of the Chinese company Sinopharm provides weak protection against COVID-19 among the elderly, 50% of people over 80 do not develop protective antibodies.

A study of blood samples taken from 450 people in Hungary at least two weeks after the second dose of the Sinopharm vaccine found that 90% of people under the age of 50 had developed protective antibodies. However, with age, this rate decreased, and 50% of people over 80 years old did not have them.

A WHO spokesman said its experts were "aware of the study and continue to examine all available data."

The effectiveness of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine is 50%

In mid-January 2021, researchers reported that in Brazilian clinical trials, the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac was 50.4%. Thus, the vaccine turned out to be significantly less effective than previous data suggested.

Sinovac, a biopharmaceutical company of, Beijing has developed an inactivated CoronaVac vaccine that uses killed viral particles to make the immune system learn to recognize the virus's antigens without the risk of serious illness. Several countries, including, and Indonesia, Turkey Singapore have placed orders for the vaccine, and researchers at the Butantan Institute, which conducted trials in, Brazil have announced that the vaccine's effectiveness against "mild and severe" cases COVID-19 is 78%.

The effectiveness of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine is 50%

However, researchers later changed their mind. The primary calculations did not take into account data on the group of "very mild infections" that do not require clinical care, among those who received the vaccine. Given these data, the efficacy rate is 50.4%, the researchers said. However, as emphasized by the Butantan Institute, the vaccine is still 78% effective in preventing mild cases requiring treatment and 100% effective in preventing moderate to serious cases.

It is also worth noting that Sinovac tests gave different results in different countries. In December 2020, Turkish researchers said that the Sinovac vaccine is 91.25% effective, while Indonesia, which has already rolled out a mass vaccination program, believes that the vaccine is only 65.3% effective. However, these are only interim results. In addition, the tests are carried out differently in different countries - the number of volunteers and the criteria used to check the degree of protection differ.^[4]

2020: Pentagon organizes secret campaign to discredit vaccine

Since the summer of 2020 Pentagon , he has been conducting a secret anti-vaccination campaign COVID-19 to undermine positions China during the pandemic. This secret operation was not previously reported, wrote Reuters^[5]

A fabricated picture used in the Pentagon's campaign to discredit the Chinese vaccine. Translation:# Kitaiskivirus Do you want this? COVID came from China, and vaccines came from China. (Under the message is a photo of then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who says: 'China! Please pay attention to us first. I'll give you even more islands, POGO and black sand '. POGO is a Filipino offshore gambling operator engaged in online gambling that flourished during Duterte's reign. Black sand is one of the minerals.)

Against the background of the COVID-19 crisis, the US military launched a secret program to discredit the Chinese Sinovac vaccine. One of the goals was the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was unjustified and put innocent lives at risk.

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