As the Chinese regime cajoles and coerces people into receiving COVID-19 vaccines, many local officials are quietly avoiding the shots themselves.
Dozens of officials from Liaoning, a province in northeastern China, have cited various health reasons not to take the COVID-19 vaccines, internal documents dated late March and obtained by The Epoch Times reveal.
In a town called Xintai, located in the center of the province, only three of 66 officials have gotten vaccinated, with another two on the registration list — a dismal willingness rate of less than 10 percent.
Fifty government officers, and those from the local judicial office and law enforcement, claimed underlying illness, allergy, pregnancy, recent surgery, or a cold, according to a 29 March 2021 chart summarizing the region’s vaccination efforts.
Allergy stood out as the top reason, cited 22 times. Twenty people also cited high blood pressure while five mentioned diabetes, even though both are chronic diseases considered risk factors for COVID-19.
In Tai’an County, which has jurisdiction over the town, only four people in the 56-member Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau consented to being inoculated, with three people excusing themselves over “poor health.”
In the county’s political and legal affairs committee, a well-funded CCP organ that has direct oversight over the court system, one person mentioned toothache. In Tai’an’s fiscal service center, some said they’re taking Chinese medicine or have unspecified illnesses.
At the Tai’an Occupation Education Center, the county’s major technical college, around a third claimed to have an allergic constitution and many said they were recovering from the seasonal flu.
The CCP has been promoting Chinese COVID vaccines at home and abroad, shipping free doses to sixty-nine countries and celebrating a record of 100 million administered across China by the end of March. Gao Fu, head of the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, recently told state media they were aiming to vaccinate 70 to 80 percent of the Chinese population to achieve 'herd immunity.'
Achieving this vaccination record has required mobilization of communist party cadres countrywide. In some cases, overzealous officials have gone door to door to vaccinate residents and even threatened to blacklist the uncooperative.
The campaign has been marred with questions about vaccine quality. Still very little is known about the Chinese COVID vaccines.
The two primary COVID vaccine manufacturers in China are Sinopharm and Sinovac. Neither company has made its clinical data public, but the China-controlled World Health Organization on 31 March vouched for efficacy levels being above 50 percent — the minimum bar for a vaccine’s public use.
Sinopharm announced plans on 28 March to conduct Phase 3 trials overseas to observe how long protection from the virus lasts.
In Hong Kong, at least 12 locals have died after receiving the Sinovac shots.
“We know nothing about this vaccine,” a mainlander surnamed Li told the Chinese-language NTD, an affiliate of The Epoch Times. “There’s no third stage trial data nor analysis on whether it can produce antibodies at all, whether we can still get infected or infect others. We know nothing."
“We are better off simply having a few bowls of chicken soup at home to boost our immunity, don’t you think?”
Amid public skepticism, the regime has been drumming up the pressure. State media anchors have endorsed vaccination slogans urging people to “lend an arm.”
In southern Hainan Province, residents of a town called Wancheng were told they wouldn’t be able to take buses or go to restaurants and supermarkets without vaccination certificates.
A notice issued in Wancheng, a town in Hainan Province on March 31 warning people of consequences if they refuse to take vaccines.
“If you don’t take vaccines, it will affect your children’s schooling, work, joining the military, and housing in the future,” according to a notice that has since gone viral on Chinese social media. The officials later apologized amid the backlash and rescinded the mandate.
Mr. Wu from China’s central city of Wuhan recently received a text from his local neighborhood committee and his workplace telling him to get the vaccine on a certain date.
Both he and his father, a government official, consider it unnecessary, he said, citing a history of issues with past Chinese vaccines.
“The Chinese Communist Party seems pretty anxious about people’s lack of interest in getting the vaccines,” he said in a recent interview.
“A lot of people seemingly support the Party and hate America during normal times, but if you were to ask them to take domestic vaccines no one would agree.”
Another retired Beijing official also expressed concerns about possible adverse reactions.
“A lot of common people are worried about this, and so am I,” he told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.
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The above post is an edited version of "Chinese Officials Trying to Dodge COVID-19 Vaccinations, Citing Health Reasons: Leaked Documents" by Eva Fu, The Epoch Times, 5 April 2021. To view the full original article, click here.
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