I think there's plenty to be said for that, and I offer the following as one person's perspective and experience over the past several months with regard to making big decisions about vaccines.Big Boy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:00 pm No, but I think they'll all be saying the same. Why are Thailand issuing Sinovac to the over 60's when it should be AZ? Many saying they won't accept Sinovac.
A strange story, but one of my son's friends in Germany, who has visited us several times here in Hua Hin is saying that she doesn't trust any of the vaccines they're offering in Germany, and is going to fly her family to Hungary so that they can get Sinovac, which she believes to be far superior to the vaccines being offered in Germany.
When I hear stories like that, it makes me wonder. Everybody seems to be rubbishing everything, everywhere across the world at the moment. Are all of the vaccines OK, but we're all being influenced by what we're reading on social media by the naysayers?
I've been living and working as an international school teacher in Shanghai, China, for the past 20 years, with regular visits to Cha-am during that time (most recently in March 2020, just as the first wave of shutdowns began in Thailand). We just finished a full school year of in-person school, without a day of missed school as a result of any restrictions, localized shutdowns, or other disruptions. There were some minor inconveniences (daily reporting of health status), but this was a small price to pay.
In mid-January our school received word that its teachers were being given the option to take the Sinovac vaccine, and we had a short time window (<24 hours, I believe) to make the decision. It was an easy call: my wife and I signed on to have the shot. Later that week we were loaded up onto school buses and sent to an indoor sports stadium to have the first of two doses, with the follow up jab taking place two weeks later.
Several of my colleagues were hesitant and refused the shot, waiting for a "better option" to come through via the US Consulate . . . but, as is the case in Thailand, this did not come to pass. Eventually, these colleagues had to make their own arrangements to take the Sinovac vaccine.
In terms of safety, the vaccine has been administered to hundreds of millions of people. They were cautious--sending out initial samples to other countries before widely distributing them within China.
As for efficacy, the lack of major outbreaks or, more importantly, major fatalities in China seems to support that the Sinovac option is working well enough to be a part of a solution that is, for now, working well enough to allow for life to return pretty much to normal. Of course, I know that Sinovac is not the "magic bullet" for everything--major border restrictions, quarantine-on-arrival, aggressive testing, health screenings, monitoring of movement, and strict lockdowns of neighborhoods/villages where cases are found are also in place.
I'm no apologist for the "Chinese Way" of doing things, but in this case--and for now--their approach to the pandemic seems to have been effective, and I have to believe that the aggressive promotion of Sinovac has played a role in that process.
