Tianjin Binhai New Area has roll out vaccination to minors aged 3-11 from November 8th. The Covid-19 Vaccination Site B for Expats inside TEDA Hospital now accepts foreign children aged 3 to 11 to come for COVID-19 vaccine inoculations with their parents.
There is more urgency to roll out vaccination to minors aged 3-11 as the COVID-19 flare up continues, with more cases reported across the country, officials and experts said.
The latest outbreak has affected 44 cities in 20 provinces.
Medical experts urged speeding up the rollout of vaccination and booster shots to reach herd immunity as soon as possible in face of the double threats of the cold weather and Delta variant.
Wang Qinghua, chief immunologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stressed the urgency of children being vaccinated at a press conference in Beijing on Saturday.
"We used to think of COVID-19 as having low incidence in children, but as the pandemic has spread globally, we have seen increased infections in children, with the rates of severe illness and mortality surpassing influenza in some countries… and the hospitalization rate for children is now more than 10 times higher than earlier this year," Wang said.
Child immunity is part of China's strategy to reach herd immunity through vaccination. The inactivated vaccines China uses have demonstrated strong immune levels in clinical trials and adverse reactions among children is no higher than in adults, Wang added.
The latest open data showed that as of October 29, more than 3.53 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered to children aged 3 to 11 across the country. The NHC is aiming to complete vaccinations for this group by the end of December on a voluntary basis.
Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based medical expert on vaccines, said that children can become infection sources in households and vaccinating them can prevent them from carrying the virus and causing new cluster infections, which shows the importance of children being vaccinated.
The latest resurgence of COVID-19 in China has spread in schools, affecting students and kindergarten children in at least four places, with Beijing, Gansu, Hebei and Heilongjiang detecting outbreaks related to schools and kindergartens.
Zhenzhou, the capital city of North China's Henan Province had also detected 30 positive cases as of Sunday, 19 of whom were students from kindergartens, primary schools and a high school.
Tao said China still needs to speed up the vaccination rollout for children, and recommends the country continue to advocate the benefits of children getting vaccinated and on reducing concerns from parents.