CNBC：
Chile has one of the world’s best vaccination rates. Covid is surging there anyway
- Chile has endured a sharp uptick in Covid infections in recent weeks, even with its world-renowned vaccine rollout and strict lockdowns in place.
- A study published by the University of Chile earlier this month reported that CoronaVac was 56.5% effective two weeks after the second doses were administered in the country. Crucially, however, they also reported that one dose was only 3% effective.
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LONDON — Chile’s vaccination campaign against the coronavirus has been one of the world’s quickest and most extensive, but a recent surge in infections has sparked concern beyond its borders.
Almost 40% of the South American country’s total population have now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to statistics compiled by Our World in Data, reflecting one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
Only Israel and the U.K., respectively, have inoculated a larger share of their population with at least one dose.Nonetheless, Chile has endured a sharp uptick in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, even with its world-renowned vaccine rollout and strict lockdowns in place for much of its 19 million inhabitants.
The number of daily cases in Chile rose to a record high on April 9, climbing above 9,000 for the first time since the pandemic began and significantly higher than the peak of almost 7,000 recorded last summer.
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There have also been questions raised about vaccine efficacy, given Chile’s widespread use of CoronaVac, the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Chinese firm Sinovac.
It comes after the head of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month that China may need to replace its Covid vaccines or change the way they are administered in order to make them sufficiently effective.
“We will solve the problem that current vaccines don’t have very high protection rates,” George Gao, director general of the Chinese CDC, said at a conference on April 11. He has since told state media that his comments were misunderstood.
Late-stage data of China’s Covid vaccines remain unpublished, and available data of the CoronaVac vaccine is varied. Brazilian trials found the vaccine to be just over 50% effective, significantly less effective than the likes of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca, while Turkish researchers have reported efficacy as high as 83.5%.
A study published by the University of Chile earlier this month reported that CoronaVac was 56.5% effective two weeks after the second doses were administered in the country. Crucially, however, they also reported that one dose was only 3% effective.
“This would help to explain why Chile — with one of the world’s most robust vaccine rollouts but 93% of the doses coming from China — has experienced a simultaneous significant expansion in cases, and a much slower decline in hospitalizations and deaths compared to the early rollouts in Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Ian Bremmer, president of risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said in a research note.
“Chile and the United Arab Emirates are both considering implementing a third dose (so a second booster shot) of the Chinese vaccine accordingly; a change in communications that will increase vaccine hesitancy for the Chinese vaccines more broadly,” Bremmer said.
