Following up w/r to the China China China Covid vaccine that MSM had been denigrating all along the way
wsj.com
Hong Kong Data Show Benefit to Third Shot of Sinovac in Preventing Omicron Deaths
New study of the city’s continuing Covid-19 outbreak underscores the importance of booster shots for the Chinese vaccine
Natasha Khan
Mar. 22, 2022 8:37 am ET
 HONG KONG—Scientists at the University of Hong Kong found that three doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine had a clear benefit over two in preventing severe illness or death in people over the age of 60, underscoring the importance of boosters for those who have received that Covid-19 shot.
The study—which analyzed patients hospitalized during the city’s continuing Omicron wave and was funded by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention—showed three shots of the vaccine were 98% effective in preventing the worst outcomes, while two shots were 72.2% effective against severe illness and 77.4% effective against death.
The findings have implications for Covid strategies in mainland China, which uses Sinovac as one of its primary vaccines, as well as the dozens of countries that have relied on the injections.
Mainland officials said Tuesday that 88% of the country’s population had received at least two shots and that 659 million people had received a booster. Official data shows about half of the country’s 35.8 million citizens over the age of 80 haven’t been vaccinated.
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Hong Kong, which has faced a record surge in Covid-19 cases and the world’s highest death rate, has been under strict restrictions. WSJ’s Diana Chan reports on how everyday life has changed in the city, from panic buying to an exodus of residents. Photo: Emmanuel Serna/Zuma Press
Hong Kong offers two vaccines to its residents: one co-developed by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc. and the other CoronaVac from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. The data presented Tuesday showed three shots of either offered more than 98% protection against death or severe illness in those over 60 years old.
“If you are triple jabbed with either vaccine, you are very, very, very well protected,” said Gabriel Leung, the dean of the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine.
The findings show that for recipients of only two doses of a vaccine, the shot made by BioNTech was 89.6% and 92.3% protective against severe illness and death in those over 60.
The data come with some caveats, Professor Leung said. For example, the team was still researching what impact waning immunity over time would have, while it’s also possible the data reflected a “healthy vaccinee” effect, where people who opted for three jabs might have been healthier to begin with, which could insert some bias into the data.
The University of Hong Kong team will be publishing a preprint of its findings in the coming days and have submitted the paper to a medical journal.
Across age groups in Hong Kong, almost all severe or fatal cases in this wave have involved people who weren’t vaccinated, the researchers said. More than 90% of people who lost their lives in the current outbreak were unvaccinated, health officials said earlier this month.
The city of 7.4 million had for the most part held off Covid-19 during the first two years of the pandemic, but it has seen cases skyrocket during the Omicron-driven outbreak, which has caused more than a million confirmed cases and 6,151 deaths as of Tuesday. The death rate has been driven to the world’s highest largely because half of the city’s residents over the age of 70 weren’t vaccinated when the outbreak began.
In October, the World Health Organization recommended a third dose of CoronaVac to people aged 60 who had received the Sinovac shot.
The Chinese CDC funded the study to learn more about the comparative efficacy of vaccines, Professor Leung said. Since the outbreak more than two years ago in Wuhan, the country has managed to tamp down infections quickly, leaving few clusters of serious cases to study.
Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com
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