China has administered more than 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, covering about half of its 1.4 billion population as of Tuesday, citing data from the National Health Commission.
China has maintained a rate of administering roughly 100 million doses a week since May following some small-scale outbreaks. For example, it took nine days from July 4 to July 13 for the number to grow from 1.3 to 1.4 billion and six days from June 28 to July 4 to grow from 1.2 to 1.3 billion.
The speed peaked at 100 million per five days when the number grew from 900 million to 1 billion from June 14-19 as well as 1 billion to 1.1 billion from June 19-24.
China's top respiratory disease specialist, Zhong Nanshan, estimated the speed would be even faster in the second half of 2021.
According to Zhong, if vaccine efficacy is 70 percent, then for China the vaccination rate should reach 83.3 percent of the population to build herd immunity, whereas around the world, the rate should be 89.2 percent. For Asia and Europe, the rates should reach 80.2 percent and 96.2 percent, respectively.
With a vaccine efficacy of 80 percent, 72.9 percent of the people in China should be vaccinated to reach herd immunity, while the figure should be 78 percent globally, 70.2 percent for Asia and 84.2 percent for Europe, according to the statistics that Zhong presented.