COVID vaccine takeup China is working at full throttle to vaccinate its people against COVID-19, as over 400 million doses had been administered as of Sunday, just nine days after the figure surpassed 300 million doses. It took 17 days for the number of COVID-19 vaccines administered on the mainland to exceed 300 million doses from 200 million doses, and 26 days from 100 million doses to 200 million doses, according to daily updates by the National Health Commission. The accelerated mass vaccination drive has been partially spurred by the latest COVID-19 outbreaks in East China’s Anhui Province and Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, which had seen 16 confirmed locally transmitted cases in total as of Sunday evening. Mars landing The lander carrying China’s first Mars rover successfully touched down on the red planet on early Saturday morning. It is the first time China has landed a probe on a planet other than Earth. Tianwen-1, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China’s island province of Hainan on July 23, 2020. It was the first step in China’s planetary exploration of the solar system, with the aim of completing orbiting, landing and roving on the red planet in one mission. The name Tianwen, meaning Questions to Heaven, comes from a poem written by the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan (about 340-278 B.C.). China’s first Mars rover is named Zhurong after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology, which echoes with the Chinese name of the red planet: Huoxing (the planet of fire). Tornadoes kill 12 The death toll in a tornado that hit Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, on Friday, has risen to eight, while 230 others were injured, according to a press conference by the city government on Saturday afternoon. The tornado, packing winds of 23.9 meters per second, ripped through the Caidian District of Wuhan at 8:39 p.m. on Friday. Meanwhile, a tornado wrecked havoc in Suzhou in Jiangsu Province on Friday. The Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Emergency Management has verified that four people are dead and 19 others injured in Shengze Township. Sinovac vaccine China’s Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 has appeared to be highly efficacious, as an overwhelming majority of vaccinated health workers were found protected from death and hospitalization, according to a Bloomberg report.3 Pandji Dhewantara, an official of Indonesia’s health ministry, told a press conference last week that among the 128,290 health workers vaccinated with Sinovac vaccines and tracked from January to March, 98 percent of them were protected from death and 96 percent from hospitalization as soon as seven days after the second dose. (SD-Agencies) | 