China aims to vaccinate 70-80% of population by mid-2022

China is aiming to vaccinate 70-80 percent of its population by mid-2022, the head of the country’s Center for Disease Control said on Saturday.

With four approved vaccines, China will vaccinate 900 million to 1 billion people, Gao Fu, the CDC head, told Chinese state media broadcaster CGTN.

“We hope that China can take the lead in achieving herd immunity in the world,” he said.

Herd immunity occurs when enough of the population has immunity, either from vaccination or past infection, to stop the uncontrolled spread of an infectious disease like COVID-19.

At an online forum held by Tsinghua University and the Brookings Institution in early March, Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese respiratory disease expert, said China is planning to reach a target of 40 percent by the end of June.

China had administered 52.5 million vaccine doses through the end of February. It has approved four domestically made vaccines: two from state-owned Sinopharm, one from Sinovac, and another from CanSino.

In Beijing, communities have issued notices encouraging residents to register for free COVID-19 vaccines after the capital city completed vaccinating key groups, including front-line customs inspectors and cold-chain workers, in February. The city has also started vaccinating people older than 60 years old.

“If we can speed up our medical supply and production levels, we may be able to get people inoculated earlier than the time we planned,” said Gao.

According to Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, it aims to increase its production capacity to more than 1 billion doses this year. Another vaccine maker Sinovac also said that it will expand annual production capacity to 2 billion doses by June.

Meanwhile, China is working with more than 10 other countries in vaccine research and development.

“In terms of vaccine supply, research and development, we have a variety of vaccines that are currently being developed, so China should have many more vaccines in the future,” Gao said.

In a bid to make the vaccine a global public good, China has donated or exported COVID-19 shots to over 60 countries. “China has controlled the pandemic well so we can give vaccines to countries that are in urgent need of the shots,” Gao said.