Push in Beijing for vaccine passports

Some delegates attending the annual meetings of the Chinese parliament and its advisory body this week want vaccine passports to help restore some normality to life.

Zhu Zhengfu, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, told state media that Beijing should promote recognition of such passports globally to boost tourism and economic exchanges.

Zhu said international arrivals could be exempted from quarantine if they have a negative nucleic acid test and a vaccine passport.

The meetings of the National People's Congress begin tomorrow while those of the advisory CPPCC begin today.

NPC deputy Witman Hung Wai-man will also propose that Beijing issue vaccine passports in Hong Kong that would be recognized in the mainland.

That way, Hongkongers should be able to travel to the mainland without quarantine.

China has largely managed to subdue Covid-19 after the initial outbreak that emerged in late 2019. But the pandemic took hold around the world and has claimed nearly 2.65 million lives.

Health experts now say the country is lagging in its vaccination rollout as it has the disease largely under control. Still, there are plans to inoculate 40 percent of the population by June.

Zhong Nanshan, leader of a group of experts attached to the National Health Commission, said the country had delivered 52.5 million doses of vaccines by February 28.

He was speaking at an online forum between US and Chinese medical experts hosted by the Brookings Institution and Tsinghua University. The target is the first China has offered publicly since it began its mass immunization campaign in mid-December.

But China has been slow to vaccinate its 1.4 billion people relative to other nations.

Experts say the country has enough vaccine supply for its population, though Beijing has pledged to provide close to half a billion doses abroad.

"The current vaccination pace is very low due to outbreak control [being] so good in China, but I think the capacity is enough,'' said Zhang Wenhong, an infectious diseases expert based in Shanghai.

Developers of China's four currently approved vaccines have said they could manufacture up to 2.6 billion doses by the end of this year. Still, vaccinating the population will be a daunting task.

Even at the rate of vaccinating 10 million people a day, it would take roughly seven months to vaccinate 70 percent of the population.

Gao Fu, head of the Center for Disease Control, along with Zhong and others urged more US-China cooperation.