Good to know. I’d also really be eager to find out if China would take the approach of vaccinating the high risk crowd and then letting things open up. It’s hard for me to understand what the end goal is for world leaders dealing with a virus that isn’t going to disappear with a vaccination that isn’t permanent. As it stands now, it’s chaos with no real end in sight if the goal is ensure zero cases.

We will get vaxed annually, if needed. I have no problem with this..

Right but as of now a vax doesn’t completely prevent spread and is not expected to last more than about 12mo. I don’t see how a vaccine passport could even be effective for international use, only domestic within China. I believe Sinovac forecasted manufacturing 150 million doses per year which can’t even keep up with a small portion of China.

Whats the end goal? No cases?

BioNTech doesn’t completely prevent spread - as in 100%, sterilising immunity.
But provides 90% https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...re-are-caveats - and does so for at least six months.
That’s quite enough.

BioNTech isn’t approved in China as of 21 March 2021, only Hong Kong. The only vaccines approved in China are purely domestic ones https://fortune.com/2021/03/20/biont...pproval-fosun/

Other Chinese vaccines e.g. SinoVac won’t release peer reviewed data which makes many people suspect they are less effective

I’m not actually so concerned about the whole % effectiveness piece (disclaimer: I already got 2x Moderna).

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that
1) there is no end game/strategy for countries with “no covid” with regard to vaccinated travelers. This includes China, but also for example Australia and New Zealand
2) Vaccines are now a political issue in China

IME, the Chinese are fine with non-Chinese vaccines.

Chinese foreign affairs department disagrees (at least for now). only Chinese vaccines are recognized when it comes to entrance.

I do think the Chinese government's goal is zero cases. Which they have been managing, more or less, since late Spring 2020, and are willing to do whatever to make that happen.

I fear that China may not open up for a long time because of this--not until cases in other countries drop to close to zero. In addition, the CCP may think that making international travel more difficult improves domestic political stability, and they're willing take the hit to the economy.

I was only addressing the stopping spread ability of Biontech on an objective basis. And as I admit, even Biontech isn't foolproof. Also yes no NHC approval.

As things stand (and given what we know how things work with face) you're more than less likely going to need Sinovac to get back in.

I'm starting to look at info for dual vaccinations data - it may be eventually need for China-rest of world travel - but looking for some outbound traveller from Mainland to try first and then looking for the Govt documentation (currently our forms don't document dual vaccination).

The Chinese tourism sector was massively tilted towards the outbound side so if anything closing the borders is giving a major economic boost to China as far as tourism is concerned. Of course the same is not true for Australia or NZ and their tourism sectors are struggling for survival.

I’m afraid you’re right which is unfortunate because it likely means the 14 day quarantine brain swab process isn’t going away for years. And that’s regardless of vaccination status. China is probably the only large or economically relevant country with the ability to actually do that too.

Considering I will want/need to internationally travel a few times per year to visit family or HQ, this makes me doubtful to want to extend my expat gig. That’s 4-6 weeks per year in quarantine, yikes.

So far Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been about 95% effective against any disease and 100% effective against serious disease. It's not going to get any better than that. And if China is going to wait for zero cases to start allowing people back in, they will never open back up. Eventually if they do want to re-open they are going to have to accept people vaccinated with non-Chinese vaccines.

As for Chinese vaccines, aren't there multiple domestic China vaccines in addition to Sinovac? From what I have read it is going to be quite a while before China fully vaccinates the population unless they ramp up production of all of their vaccines. I generally travel to China twice per year, around the time of the Canton Fair. The April fair is not happening, I am starting to doubt that the October fair will happen.

Either a 0 rate globally or a 50-70% vaccination takeup rate locally.

If China opens up again before vaccination takeup is high, it's like the Incas allowing the Conquistadores to land with their smallpox. Even if unarmed.