The city of Beijing reduced a plan to require vaccines against Covid-19 to enter some public places and maintained that a negative virus test was enough. Pictured here is a virus testing site in Beijing, China, on Tuesday, July 5, 2022.
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BEIJING – China’s first large-scale attempt to demand vaccines against Covid appears to have ended before it began.
On Wednesday, the capital of Beijing announced that as of Monday, most people should be vaccinated before entering social gathering places such as gyms.
On Thursday, the city removed the mention of the warrant, according to the local state newspaper Beijing Daily.
The report cited a member of the city’s virus prevention and control office, who emphasized the current rules – a negative virus test of the past 72 hours – for entering public places. But the report did not mention the vaccination requirement, it only said that the government representative encouraged people to get vaccinated voluntarily.
The Beijing city government did not have an official statement when CNBC contacted Friday morning. The capital has reported zero new cases of Covid for Thursday, with or without symptoms.
The state newspaper said it contacted the government office after the vaccination warrant generated “attention and suspicion” among city residents, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese text.
The Beijing Daily’s initial report on Wednesday made a lot of comments on WeChat.
The most popular comments asked how someone would prove that he was not “fit” for Covid vaccines, especially in complex situations for the elderly or pregnant. Others asked to clarify which public spaces are classified as “meeting points” and whether this includes train stations. Still others pointed out problems with not being able to integrate vaccination records from Hong Kong or foreign countries into Beijing’s health code system.
In China, usually only vaccines made in China by Sinopharm or Sinovac are available to the public.