Sinopharm is also known as China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation, a Beijing-based Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Yu, who is also a deputy to China’s National People’s Congress, told the People’s Daily during the Two Sessions—the CCP’s most important annual political conference from March 4 to 11—that in March 2020, Sinopharm management received COVID-19 vaccines and still have high levels of antibodies after one year of continuous monitoring.
COVID-19 is the disease the CCP virus causes.
He also touted his pharmaceutical group as the world’s largest manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccines so far, which has provided nearly 100 million doses of vaccines at home and abroad. He added that there had been no reported cases of severe adverse reactions.
However, Yu’s claim has sparked doubts over the origins of COVID-19 virus strains and the timeline of vaccine research and development because the Chinese regime officially acknowledged the CCP virus in January 2020 and declared a lockdown in Wuhan, the epicenter, on Jan. 23, 2020.
A resident of Wuhan surnamed Chen, who lives near the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, recently told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that the CCP is unlikely to work out a vaccine within two months in terms of vaccine development cycle, and that the CCP was again lying to the public.
Yu was “purposefully hyping the safety and efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines because the public fears they have lower efficacy, more contraindications, and unreported cases of adverse reactions,” Chen said. “This rhetoric is purely out of political needs rather than scientific considerations.”
On March 5, 2020, China’s state media Xinhua News Agency ran an article titled “Background: Why Is Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Research & Development So ‘Slow’” which said “vaccine research & development is a time-consuming, high-risk, and high-investment job that necessitates preliminary design, animal experiments, and three phases of clinical trials. Generally, it may take three or five or more than ten years to make vaccines available in the market, depending on virus type and technology roadmaps.”