A few months ago, I noted that China was making a very big deal about sharing its homegrown vaccines against COVID-19 with other countries, in contrast to “vaccine hoarding” by wealthier nations. Providing an affordable, effective solution to this deadly plague had the potential to make the Chinese pharmaceutical industry - and the Chinese Communist Party, though I repeat myself - many new friends and allies around the world.
That’s how it was supposed to work, anyway. In practice, countries that that bet on Chinese vaccines are finding that they don’t work too well:
Mongolia promised its people a “COVID-free summer.” Bahrain said there would be a “return to normal life.” The tiny island nation of the Seychelles aimed to jump-start its economy.
All three put their faith, at least in part, in easily accessible Chinese-made vaccines, which would allow them to roll out ambitious inoculation programs at a time when much of the world was going without.
But instead of freedom from the coronavirus, all three countries are now battling a surge in infections.
China kicked off its vaccine diplomacy campaign last year by pledging to provide a shot that would be safe and effective at preventing severe cases of COVID-19. Less certain at the time was how successful it and other vaccines would be at curbing transmission.
Now, examples from several countries suggest that the Chinese vaccines may not be very effective at preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the new variants. The experiences of those countries lay bare a harsh reality facing a post-pandemic world: The degree of recovery may depend on which vaccines governments give to their people.
In the Seychelles, Chile, Bahrain and Mongolia, 50% to 68% of the populations have been fully inoculated, outpacing the United States, according to Our World In Data, a data tracking project. All four ranked among the top 10 countries with the worst COVID outbreaks as recently as last week, according to data from The New York Times. And all four are mostly using shots made by two Chinese vaccine makers, Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech.
[…]
No vaccine fully prevents transmission and people can still fall ill after getting inoculated, but the relatively low efficacy rates of Chinese shots have been identified as a possible cause of the recent outbreaks.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have efficacy rates of more than 90%. A variety of other vaccines — including AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — have efficacy rates of around 70%. The Sinopharm vaccine developed with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products has an efficacy rate of 78.1%; the Sinovac vaccine has an efficacy rate of 51%.
The Chinese companies have not released much clinical data to show how their vaccines work at preventing transmission. On Monday, Shao Yiming, a public health researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that China needed to fully vaccinate 80% to 85% of its population to achieve herd immunity, revising a previous official estimate of 70%.
Data on breakthrough infections has not been made available either, though a Sinovac study out of Chile showed that the vaccine was less effective than Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna at preventing infection among vaccinated individuals.
A representative from Sinopharm hung up the phone when reached for comment. Sinovac did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s the thing: if I were living in one of these countries, and a Chinese vaccine was the first one available to me, I would still take the shot. A 51% effective vaccine is arguably better than nothing. If the Chinese vaccines had damaging side effects, we would likely know it by now.
Similarly, an imitation pair of Nike sneakers purchased on AliExpress is better than having nothing at all on your feet. But compared to the real thing, it’s not even going to come close.
Speaking of the Chinese Communist Party, they want everyone to know they are extremely outraged and upset by stories about human rights abuses…in Canada.
On the same day Canada helped to launch an international effort at the United Nations to demand that China allow free access to Xinjiang to investigate reported human rights violations, China and its allies have called on the UN to investigate crimes against Indigenous people in Canada.
"We are deeply concerned about the serious human rights violations against the Indigenous people in Canada. Historically, Canada robbed the Indigenous people of the land, killed them and eradicated their culture," said Jiang Duan, a senior official at China's mission to the UN in Geneva.
"We call for a thorough and impartial investigation into all cases where crimes were committed against Indigenous people, especially the children," Jiang said, citing the preliminary discovery last month of what are thought to be the unmarked burial sites of children's remains adjacent to the former Kamloops residential school.
Jiang delivered his statement on behalf of a group of countries that includes Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela.
The Chinese have learned well from their old frenemies in the Soviet Union, who came up with “and you are lynching negroes!” as an all-purpose response whenever the United States criticized its human rights record.
(Russians themselves even joked about this. Two farmers, one from the USSR and one from America, meet at a conference. The American asks how the harvest is coming along this year, and the Russian responds, "but you are lynching negroes!”)
Justin Trudeau responds, correctly, that here in Canada we actually talk openly about this stuff, instead of sending in the execution vans.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded Tuesday to China's moves at the UN by drawing comparisons between how the two countries have handled historical and ongoing injustices.
"The journey of reconciliation is a long one, but it is a journey we are on. China is not recognizing even that there is a problem. That is a pretty fundamental difference," Trudeau told reporters.
"In Canada, we had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Where is China's truth and reconciliation commission? Where is their truth? Where is the openness that Canada has always shown and the responsibility that Canada has taken for the terrible mistakes of the past, and indeed, many of which continue into the present?"
Trudeau said it's important for Canadians and the world to pay attention to the "systemic abuse and human rights violations against the Uyghurs."
It brings to mind another old Cold War joke. An American and a Russian argue about who has the better country. The American says he has freedom of speech in the USA. “I can even walk up to the White House fence and yell, ‘Ronald Reagan is an asshole.’” The Russian responds, “Comrade, I too have freedom of speech in the Soviet Union. I can walk into the middle of Red Square and yell, ‘Ronald Reagan is an asshole.’”
My response to China’s absolutely sincere and absolutely totally not hypocritical request is, bring it on. If the United Nations wants to join us in investigating the darkest chapters of our history, and how First Nations people still bear the scars, more power to them.
That’s how an open society is supposed to work. It’s a messy process, but we run toward our problems, not keep them hidden on penalty of death.
Canada should let them in. And ask them what they’re afraid of.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time a repressive government has pointed to Canada’s native peoples to deflect attention from their own crimes against humanity:
South Africa's ambassador to Canada, often the target of demonstrations against his government's policies, has fired back some carefully aimed shots at Canadians, accusing them of practicing racism at home while they decry apartheid abroad.
Canadians were embarrassed when Ambassador Glenn Babb made a well publicized inspection tour of an impoverished Indian reservation on the Canadian prairies last month. His visit was intended to make the point that conditions for the 3,300 persons there differed little from those of blacks living under South Africa's system of racial segregation and minority rule, which Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has condemned as "odious" and "evil."
Now that this asshole is back in the news for doing what he’s best known for - and I don’t meant singing - it’s time to revisit by far the greatest moment in Fox News history. Even the Media Matters people have to respect this one: