China is nearing herd immunity 85.64 percent of the Chinese population fully vaccinated ahead of the coming New Year and Spring Festival travel rush, which is expected to see passenger trips surpass the 1.48 billion taken in 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced on Wednesday.
Given such a high vaccination rate, together with China's mature dynamic zero-case policy, experts said the possibility of a major epidemic resurgence during the two holidays is low, but they warned people not to let down their guard as the country continues to face threats posed by the epidemic overseas and the highly contagious Omicron strain.
A total of 1.274 billion people have completed a full course of vaccination against COVID-19, which means 85.64 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, He Qinghua, an official of the NHC, said at a press conference on Wednesday. He said vaccines are a great weapon to prevent COVID-19, calling for more people to receive vaccines, especially those above 60 years old.
Experts estimate that herd immunity would require around 80-90 percent of the population to have COVID-19 immunity, either through prior infection or vaccination. Chinese top expert Zhong Nanshan previously predicted that the percentage to build herd immunity against COVID-19 would be about 83 percent, but some other experts warned that the serious Omicron variant probably had pushed the standard higher.
The 2022 Spring Festival travel rush will last 40 days from January 17 to February 25. Preliminary forecasts show passenger trips during the entire 2022 Spring Festival travel rush will increase significantly from 870 million in 2021, and may even surpass the 1.48 billion in 2020, Ren Zhuoli, an official from the Ministry of Transport, said on Wednesday.
