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Local district in Beijing uses carrot-and-stick way of getting people vaccinated

蘋果日報 2021/03/25 05:45


A district in Beijing is giving out coupons to entice residents to get the COVID-19 jab while making the vaccinations mandatory for workers.
Daxing district in the Chinese capital has spent 200 million yuan (US$30.7 million) on coupons for residents. Those who have received two doses of vaccines will get five supermarket vouchers of 30 yuan each, and the vouchers are usable upon spending of 100 yuan.
A district resident identified as Song told Radio Free Asia that officials on the local resident committee started forcing people to take vaccines from a month ago and warned that they could not go to work if they did not comply.
Song said she had learned from a Chinese internet user that government units would receive rewards as more people were vaccinated, and yet the leaders of the units chose not to be inoculated.
As of Wednesday, Daxing had administered 1.14 million doses to residents, with 73.2% of the population over 18 years old having received the first dose. This was in stark contrast to the corresponding figure of 70 million people across mainland China, which represented just 5% of the national population.
Public health authorities in Shouguang city in Shandong province, which has a population of 1.08 million, have issued an emergency notice demanding section-level officials or above to get the first dose before a deadline. They also asked all departments to look into the number of people who had yet to be vaccinated.
Officials must take up responsibility to promote vaccination. Those who were found to be lacking or had failed to register or lied about vaccination records would face punishment from the disciplinary department, the health authorities said.
A Guangdong man identified as Chen told RFA that the people had no confidence in Chinese-made vaccines following cases of defective jabs which harmed children.
Although 43% of Chilean people had received Chinese-made vaccines, the rate of infection in that country was at a record high, a Zhejiang woman identified as Wang told RFA.
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