comment: >
  
  Fair on that point though I'd argue the support of CCP, or at least nationalism, is big among younger folks. Seeing 30 years of fantastic growth that you grew up with would make you a believer. Fair points though, especially on the traditional medicine.
context: They seriously weren't using this before?
  It's like step one for high risk patients >
  
  C-C-P leadership purchased, imported and vaccinated themselves with 5000 Pfizer jabs as soon as they could back in 2021 and screwed the rest of the nation. >
  
  
  and screwed the rest of the nation.
  
  *still screwing.
  They won't get off the Sinovac train.  Even though the West, which had effective vaccines (Sinovac was marginal, at best), they freely admit that with the new strains that have developed, the 1st gen don't cut it.  Xi won't admit this, god knows why.  So, they double down on Sinovac, lockdowns, etc. >
  
  
  Xi won't admit this, god knows why.
  
  Hard to justify being an authoritarian when you get it wrong. >
  
  How could you say that, when he was clearly just reelected in a free and fair system? >
  
  Yeah, how can you say that without the Weibo-police immediately del... oh wait, this is Reddit. >
  
  On Monday, Chinese state media CCTV quoted President Xi Jinping as saying the country needed a more targeted health strategy to protect people's lives as the Covid situation in China changes. >
  
  It's a combination of factors in case of Pfizer. Yes nationalism is an issue but they also want complete immunity in cases from any side effects of the vaccine
  Plus the vaccine needs ultra cold storage which wasn't the case for AstraZeneca or local made vaccines (at least in the Indian case ) 
  Plus the vaccines imported would be costlier compared to the ones made in China or local countries
  Ofcourse this is not to takeaway any advantages that the Pfizer vaccine has but there are 2 sides to every issue >
  
  
  Plus the vaccines imported would be costlier compared to the ones made in China
  
  Well...yeah...but they also actually work, which seems to be the ultimate deciding factor here. >
  
  Yes in this case they are more superior but I was just discussing alternative reasons as mentioned above >
  
  Beijing has been trying real hard to push their traditional Chinese medicine for many years now. The problem with TCM is that it literally doesn’t work. Medically, it’s complete nonsense. Still, they put it above western medicine for ideological reasons. >
  
  It's partly the TCM and partly their insistence on Sinovac / Sinopharm vaccines instead of Western jabs. >
  
  Can the buy vaccines from Pfizer or moderna if they wanted to? No idea how that works >
  
  Nope. I have friends in different parts of China and despite having access to personal high-end doctors they can't get Pfizer or Moderna despite trying for months. Most of them have had covid in the last month. Almost everyone at their firms has also had covid in the last 30 days. It's almost like they are speed-running it. Unfortunately, if you're over 65 and have some sort of issue you have a high chance of not making it. It is a shame how many grandparents have been lost recently. I've researched trying to ship them something from here but getting through customs is..... an issue. >
  
  If I were more cynical I would suggest a correlation between a significantly weaker economy and the advantage of having a lot less mouths to feed that contribute little to said economy. >
  
  That is imo unlikely. For three years, not only are their narratives about protect the elderly, they also shifted more resources to the elderly than they should, to the point young people were asking "what about us", and began lying flat and not upholding the economy.
  They likely just didn't have a plan whatsoever.
  Youth of China were under tremendous pressure from news that the retirement funds hit new peaks despite bad economies, that covid treatment in Wuhan doesn't favor young people first, from TV show hosts and officials talking about youth should take low paying jobs to boost the economy, that housing prices should remain high to give incentives for youth to work harder, etc. >
  
  I just think it's odd that China draws the line at mandating vaccines. One-child - ok. Shooting protesters, ok. Selling organs from political prisoners: why not? Genocide: it's on the table. But requiring obstinate old Chinese to get a lifesaving shot? Perish the thought, we're not monsters!! >
  
  My only guess is they don't want to set themselves up where they fail. All those other points they've been quite successful. Getting people vaccinated? Doubt they could succeed on a reasonable time frame. While stockpile vaccines when you have zero covid? >
  
  My guess is that due to the fact that the older population tend to be staunch supporters of the CCP, they don't want to upset them by mandating vaccines. 
  Also they've stoked the traditional medicine fire too much to now go back and say that they actually need real medicine.