Official admits China’s Covid vaccines’ effectiveness low

China’s top disease control expert has admitted the effectiveness of the country’s Covid-19 vaccines is low (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

The effectiveness of China’s coronavirus vaccines is low and the government is considering mixing them to give them a boost, the country’s top disease control official has said.

Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates”, said Gao Fu, director of the China Centres for Disease Control, in a rare admission at a conference in the south-western city of Chengdu on Saturday.