Team News Riveting
Chinese authorities are administering vaccines to the Indian community to “prove” its shots are more popular and superior in the quality despite dispute.
China’s state-run newspaper Global Times carried a report claiming that “the Indian community in China is positively embracing Chinese developed COVID-19 vaccines, despite some international rumors and disputes about Chinese vaccines.”
Many Indians in front-line Chinese cities have been vaccinated in recent weeks, the report said.
In Shanghai, where catering personnel are among the priority groups to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, several Indian restaurant staffers had also received shots. The report quoted a Keralite working in a restaurant stating that “All we Indian staffers were voluntarily vaccinated.”
Currently, the official vaccination registration for general expatriates is not yet available in most parts of China. However, some regional governments offer priority inoculation to local foreigners engaged in higher-risk industries, including healthcare, education, catering and logistics.
“It nonetheless doesn’t dampen the expectations that Indians in China hold toward the vaccines. Some told the Global Times that they trust Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and are looking forward to receiving a dose in China,” the report said.
Putting the ball in the court of Indians in China, the authorities are trying to explain to the World that people don’t have concerns about their efficacy or safety. Moreover, China is concerned with the success of Indian vaccine and has been desperately trying to prove its failure.
The Global Times quoted a health worker from Telangana to expedite its strategy. The health worker was parroted stating they “were reluctant in taking Covaxin” and adding that the doses of Covaxin administered was also less.
China is baffled with the vaccine diplomacy in which India has outshined it in the South Asian countries especially its neighbours including Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Refusing Chinese vaccine, these countries that are desperate to revive its tourism-dependent economies have offered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government a way to claw back ground.
India is reportedly considering giving away anything from 12 million to 20 million shots to its neighbours in the first wave of assistance over the next three to four weeks.
