Nearly 75 mln COVID-19 vaccine doses administered across China

BEIJING -- Nearly 75 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered across China by the end of Saturday, a spokesman for the National Health Commission said on March 21.

"Overall, the COVID-19 response in China has been conducted soundly," said spokesman Mi Feng at a press conference of the State Council inter-agency task force for COVID-19 response. "However, more accurate and effective epidemic prevention and control measures are still needed to ensure that there are no large-scale rebounds in cases."

China's annual vaccine production can fully meet the whole country's needs, as judged by the existing production arrangements, said Mao Junfeng, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at the same press conference.

China has authorized five COVID-19 vaccines for conditional marketing or emergency use. These include three inactivated vaccines, one adenovirus vector vaccine, and one recombinant protein subunit vaccine, Mao noted.

Mi said now in Chinese regions where the epidemic risk is at a low level, people with a "green" health QR code may travel in an orderly manner on the premise that their body temperatures are normal and they follow necessary personal protection requirements.

Feng Zijian, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the press conference that before population-level immunity is achieved in China through vaccination, people, vaccinated or not, still need to wear face masks in indoor or closed sites where people gather, mind personal hygiene and comply with local COVID-19 containment measures.