China’s capital Beijing has begun offering booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine four months into the Winter Olympics in and around the city.
Anyone over the age of 18 who has received both doses of the Chinese vaccines and is part of a risk group – including participants, organizers or workers in the Olympic event – will be able to receive a third, state media reported Friday.
The booster has been administered in other cities across the vast nation since late September, but Beijing authorities have been extremely cautious about who gets the third injection.
The Winter Games are scheduled to begin on February 4, and only Chinese residents will be allowed in the stands. The tobogganing events – indoors – as well as the skiing and jumping events will be held in the suburb of Yanqing and in the nearby city of Zhangjiakou.
China has had great success in controlling local coronavirus infections thanks to strict rules on mask use, quarantine and tracing. But it continues to register infections, with 28 new ones reported on Friday, some of them in the capital suburb of Fengtai.
The pandemic is believed to have originated in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, leading to a total lockdown affecting more than 50 million people.
China has been accused of covering up the initial outbreak and hampering investigations into the origins of the coronavirus, though earlier in the week it said it will cooperate with a renewed World Health Organization investigation while “firmly opposing any form. of political manipulation ”.
The WHO on Wednesday released a list of 25 potential experts who would serve as advisers on the next steps in the investigation after their previous efforts came under fire for their benevolence towards China.
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