China’s zero-covid pandemic strategy may have saved millions of lives and postponed an inevitable reckoning with the coronavirus. But now the country is staring into the face of a crisis: an implacable virus, an under-immunized population, a stubborn political system locked into vaccine nationalism and a restive citizenry tired of lockdowns.
China’s decision to stick with its own domestically produced vaccines means it has not availed itself of what many experts believe is the most effective and flexible vaccine technology — a potentially consequential move in a country with large numbers of vulnerable people who have never had a booster shot.
