The Chinese Sinovac vaccine receives import authorisation in Germany, for use exclusively by Chinese citizens

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach hopes that Chinese in Germany will thereby have the chance to be "protected by their own vaccine here"

In case you thought vaccination had anything to do with health, Spiegel ran this bizarre and hilarious story a few days ago:

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach … has granted the Chinese Sinovac vaccine an import licence. “With this approval, we want to ensure that Chinese citizens are also protected by their own vaccine here,” Lauterbach told Spiegel.

The vaccine may be imported to the Federal Republic of Germany …. and administered exclusively to citizens of China. The basis for this decision is an assessment by the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) …

There had previously been concerns about the safety of Sinovac. These have now been dispelled following a PEI assessment, Lauterbach said, adding that there is now sufficient data on the vaccine …

…. No approval for Germans is planned.

Why not? If it’s safe and effective for the Chinese, why can’t Germans have it too?

… The introduction of Sinovac is a concession to Chinese citizens in Germany. Lauterbach wants to give them more protection against Corona: “I can well imagine that [Chinese] have a particular trust for the vaccine.”

Emphasis mine of course, because it’s just amazing that the alleged pharmaceutical preferences of Chinese foreign nationals residing in Germany are enough to bend the arm of the state, which spent a good part of the last two years caring not at all about the vigorously asserted pharmaceutical preferences of actual Germans. The Federal Republic actively coerced untold millions into accepting vaccination with products they distrusted.

The answer to this little riddle comes at the very end:

Behind the release is a possible deal to … supply the Biontech vaccine to China: Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed to closer cooperation with the People’s Republic in the fight against the pandemic during his trip to the country, and he advocated for the Biontech vaccine to be administered to German and European nationals in China.

The German government, in other words, is trying to open the door to one of the last untapped markets for mRNA vaccines in the world, namely European expats in mainland China. A prerequisite is granting a reciprocal import license to Sinovac, a vaccine that had been risky and unstudied before, but that suddenly became safe as soon as this deal was on the horizon. It’s great that our whole Ministry of Health is so deeply devoted to helping private pharmaceutical companies scrape up every last penny of profit.