The question as to why a vaccine mandate is not even enforced to precede any reopening has been raised in the following thread:
According to the attached article from the Financial Times, key explanations are a cultural aversiveness to risk and a high vaccine hesitancy risk among the elderly.
I understand that taking a vaccine is a leap of faith for anybody, but there are reasons why standard testing practices exist to minimize harm and to obtain solid results prior to any mass production and mass rollout. Furthermore, such vaccine hesitancy among the elderly also existed in neighboring Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.), but I guess the messaging has been a lot more effective in those countries as the elderly from those countries have high vaccination rates now. I suspect that a number of people in both local and central Chinese governments have chosen to not put up their pants and to not take responsibility, even when no-nonsense decisions were within reach.
Further down in the same article, something has been raised Chinese-made vaccines.
In other words, the government is so afraid of losing face in front of the greater effectiveness of existing Western-made mRNA vaccines that they chose to double down with an approach that has clearly reached its limits because of the nature of the COVID variant. Lockdowns and testing may be beneficial to the elderly, who don't do much in life (no work, no school, no shopping, only hanging around with friends), but this putting a severe burden on working age groups as shown by slower growth and a rise in youth unemployment (20% now). Furthermore, China almost had 2 years to develop plenty of different vaccine types by now.
The sad part is that there will be more tragedies like the Urumqi fire, the severe lockdowns across the country, and the outpouring of anger from the Foxconn employees before things get any better.
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