China aims to vaccinate 40% of its population by summer, a top health adviser said on Monday.

The target would be achieved by the end of June, coronavirus expert Zhong Nanshan told an online forum hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing and Brookings Institution in Washington.

He later clarified with Reuters that the target date should be the end of July, after taking into account the proportion of people who do not want to be vaccinated.

China has administered over 50 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of the end of February, Zhong said. This accounts for 3.56% of the Chinese population, a rate much lower than Israel, which has vaccinated 92% of its residents. Almost a quarter of the American population has also been vaccinated.

Even if 10 million doses were administered every day, it would take China seven months to vaccinate 70% of its population, said Zhang Wenhong, Director of Infectious Diseases Department at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University.

Life in mainland China would only return to normal in the summer of 2022, he said.

China has approved four locally developed coronavirus vaccines, three of which require two shots and another requires a single shot.

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