China's top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan said the country had fully vaccinated 1.08 billion people as of Wednesday, accounting for 76.8 percent of the total population and laying a solid foundation for achieving herd immunity by the end of this year.
Zhong said this at the opening ceremony of the China Internet Media Forum in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province on Thursday.
"As of Wednesday, the number of people who have completed vaccination has reached 1.08 billion, accounting for 76.8 percent of China's population. This has laid a very good foundation for reaching the 80 percent needed for achieving herd immunity by the end of this year," said Zhong.
"What we need is collective freedom, social freedom and national freedom. Only with these freedoms can we have individual freedom," he said.
Zhong also said that some local governments were adding further restrictions or adopting one-size-fits-all approaches in implementing the epidemic prevention policy, and the Chinese media should bear due responsibility to reveal their wrong deeds.