Workers unload a container of China’s Sinopharm inactivated coronavirus vaccines at the Belgrade Airport, Serbia, Jan. 16, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)
By Leng Shumei
If EU really has so-called more desirable values than China and Russia as European Council President Charles Michel claims, they should have made efforts to bring down infections and deaths rather than use China and Russia as an excuse to cover their failures in providing members with enough vaccines.
Chinese experts made the remarks on Wednesday as, one day before Michel, who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said in a statement that “We should not let ourselves be misled by China and Russia, both regimes with less desirable values than ours, as they organize highly limited but widely publicized operations to supply vaccines to others.”
Some of the EU countries are among the most COVID-19 affected places. Johns Hopkins University shows that, as of Wednesday, France reported nearly four million cases with 89,455 deaths, and Italy reported slightly more than three million cases with 100,479 deaths.
However, Michel switched gears to China and Russia while many residents in EU countries expect COVID-19 vaccines angrily amid a serious epidemic and are blaming the EU for failing to organize the vaccines program smoothly, which revealed the EU has come to an end to find excuses to cover their failures, Chinese experts said.
Michel noted that China and Russia have administered half as many coronavirus vaccine doses per 100 inhabitants as the 27-nation EU, despite the fact that, according to the data website of Our World in Data (OWD) run by a research team from the University of Oxford, China administered 52 million doses as of the end of February, the second most following the US with 93.69 million doses.
Michel is trying to mislead EU residents as he compared China and Russia’s vaccination rate with EU without mentioning the population of the two countries.
The EU population with 27 member states was estimated at 447.7 million on January 1, 2020, according to an official EU document.
China’s population had exceeded 1.4 billion at the end of 2019.
India, with a similar population with China at more than 1.3 billion, has administered 24.37 million doses as of Tuesday.
Chinese experts also accused Michel for hypocrisy as the EU has been limiting and delaying vaccine delivery to buyers, while Michel boasts of their so-called desirable values.
In January, Brussels imposed export restrictions to require its customs authorities to block all COVID-19 vaccine exports if the EU’s own orders and injection needs have not been met. The World Health Organization has criticized such a move as it risked prolonging the pandemic.
China has done a lot to provide support for those in need of vaccines.
China’s vaccination program is based on its controlled epidemic situation. So the country can, in previous months, focus on vaccinating high-risk groups and export to countries and regions that more urgently need vaccines, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccines expert, explained.
Tao believes China would accelerate domestic vaccination after this year’s two sessions that would conclude on Thursday to resume international exchanges.
The Global Times learned that China has already made plans to vaccinate 560 million people, or 40 percent of China’s population, by the end of June, and another 330 million people will be vaccinated by the end of the year, covering 64 percent of the population.
Beijing authorities said Wednesday that, from January 1 to March 9, they had administered nearly 8.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines on about six million people, around one third of its permanent resident population.
Global Times
