EU offers free COVID-19 vaccines to China to help curb outbreak

The EU has offered to supply China with free COVID-19 vaccines to help Beijing contain a mass outbreak of the illness following its decision to end strict nationwide pandemic-related restrictions.

According to the Financial Times, the offer had been made only recently ahead of a meeting of EU health ministry officials on December 29, 2022, said EU commission officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity.

The initiative is part of efforts by EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides to arrange a European response to the prospect of a wave of infections after Beijing ditched its so-called “zero COVID” policy.

“Commissioner Kyriakides has reached out to her Chinese counterparts to offer solidarity and support, including public health expertise as well as through variant-adapted EU vaccine donations,” said one official. Beijing has yet to respond to the offer, the person added.

China has relied on its domestically produced Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines and has yet to deploy western vaccines using mRNA technology at a large scale.

Caliber.Az recalls, that the Chinese government has stopped publishing daily statistics on the coronavirus since December 25.

While the health authorities did not offer an explanation for its decision to stop releasing daily COVID data, Beijing admitted that the scale of the outbreak has become “impossible” to track following the end of mandatory mass testing, as reported by Al Jazeera.

The increase in cases followed a decision by Chinese authorities to relax restrictive measures amid protests against coronavirus restrictions.

Australia and Canada introduced coronavirus testing for tourists from China.