Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING — China’s first large-scale effort to require Covid vaccinations appears to be over before it began. On Wednesday, the capital Beijing announced that from Monday, most people will have to be vaccinated before entering social gathering places such as gyms. On Thursday, the city removed the reference to the order, according to the state-run local newspaper, Beijing Daily. The report cited a member of the city’s virus prevention and control office as emphasizing the current rules — a negative virus test within the past 72 hours — for entering public spaces. But the report did not mention the vaccination requirement, saying only that the government spokesman encouraged people to get vaccinated voluntarily. When contacted by CNBC, a spokesperson for the Beijing city government confirmed the Beijing Daily report. The capital reported zero new Covid cases for Thursday, with or without symptoms. The state-run newspaper said it contacted the government office after the vaccination order caused “attention and doubts” among city residents, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese text. Beijing Daily’s initial report on Wednesday drew a lot of comments on WeChat. The most popular comments asked how one would prove to be “unfit” for Covid vaccinations — especially in complicated situations for the elderly or pregnant women. Others asked for clarification on which public places are classified as “social gathering points” and whether this includes train stations. Still others noted problems with the inability to integrate vaccination records from Hong Kong or foreign countries into the Beijing city health code system. In China, generally only Chinese-made vaccines from Sinopharm or Sinovac are available to the public.
