China says it aims to vaccinate 40% of population by June

Health experts in China say their country is lagging in its coronavirus vaccination rollout because it has the disease largely under control, but plans to inoculate 40% of its population by June. Zhong Nanshan, the leader of a group of experts attached to the National Health Commission, said the country has delivered 52.52 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Feb. 28. He was speaking Monday at an online forum between U.S and Chinese medical experts hosted by the Brookings Institution and Tsinghua University.

The target is the first China has offered publicly since it began its mass immunization campaign for key groups in mid-December.China has been slow to vaccinate its people relative to other countries, inoculating only 3.56% of its population of 1.4 billion so far, according to Zhong. Ranked first in the world in terms of percentage of population is Israel, which has vaccinated over 90% of its people. The U.S. has vaccinated about 22% of its population.

Chinese health experts say the country has enough vaccine supply for its population, although the country has pledged to provide close to half a billion doses abroad, roughly 10 times the number it has delivered at home.

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