China Gives Unproven Covid-19 Vaccines to Thousands, With Risks Unknown

Sinovac, a drug maker in Beijing, said more than 10,000 people in the city had been injected with its Covid-19 vaccine candidate.Credit...Wu Hong/EPA, via Shutterstock

Drug company workers, government officials and others have been injected outside the usual testing process. More will be soon, bewildering experts who worry about potential ill effects. First, workers at state-owned companies got dosed. Then government officials and vaccine company staff. Up next: teachers, supermarket employees and people traveling to risky areas abroad. The world still lacks a proven coronavirus vaccine, but that has not stopped Chinese officials from trying to inoculate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people outside the traditional testing process. Three vaccine candidates are being injected into workers whom the government considers essential, along with many others, including employees of the pharmaceutical firms themselves. Officials are laying out plans to give shots to even more people, citing emergency use, amounting to a big wager that the vaccines will eventually prove to be safe and effective. China’s rush has bewildered global experts. No other country has injected people with unproven vaccines outside the usual drug trial process to such a huge scale. Source: New York Times