COVID-19 Cost Hong Kong Title of World’s Longest-Living Population

People wearing masks wait to cross a traffic intersection at the Causeway Bay shopping district in Hong Kong on Feb. 7, 2023. (Andy Wong/AP Photo)

COVID-19 killed over 13,000 people in Hong Kong, causing Hong Kong to lose its title of the world’s longest-living population.

From Jan. 21, 2020, when the infected started to arrive in Hong Kong via the Guangzhou-Shenzhen High Speed Rail from Wuhan, until Jan. 29, 2023, the last day of the authorities’ mandatory quarantine, there was a cumulative total of 13,120 deaths in Hong Kong related to COVID-19, according to data from Hong Kong health authorities.

According to the latest issue of Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics published on Jan. 15, the average life expectancy of both men and women dropped in 2022, with a reduction of 2.5 years for men and 1.1 years for women from 2021, making Hong Kong lose its spot as the world’s highest life expectancy. Sweden now has the longest life expectancy for male residents, with Hong Kong ranking fourth, and Japan has the longest life expectancy for female residents.

Based on the statistics, since 2022, respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, have become the number one killer of Hongkongers. In 2022, respiratory diseases, tumors, and circulatory diseases accounted for 37 percent, 25 percent, and 17 percent of deaths in men respectively, while the corresponding figures for women are 33 percent, 24 percent, and 17 percent.

The number of deaths and death rate in Hong Kong in 2022 was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the aging population, with the number of deaths increasing from 51,354 in 2021 to 63,692 in 2022, an increase of 24 percent. The calculated standardized death rates can reflect the trend of deaths more accurately after deducting the effect of the population’s age-sex structure. The standardized mortality rate of Hong Kong declined from 11.8 deaths per 1,000 people in 1991 to 6.9 in 2021, and then rebounded to 8.4 in 2022.

As early as Jan. 9, 2023, the number of new infections in Hong Kong on a single day had been slowly decreasing, yet the number of deaths was increasing.

Vaccines Tied to Deaths

The Sinovac vaccine, which is closely related to CCP officials, was recently discontinued in China.

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Ivan Hung Fan-ngai and David Hui Shu-Cheong, the Hong Kong authorities’ expert advisers, said in late 2023 that a number of deaths related to the pandemic “were elderly people who had already received three injections.” Among them, many had received the third injection over half a year ago, and their immunity level had dropped as a result. Also, “a larger number of cases” received Sinovac’s inactivated vaccines.

Ho Pak-leung, director of the Centre for Infectious and Communicable Diseases of the University of Hong Kong, also said in a program that “most” of the relevant cases were vaccinated with Sinovac’s inactivated vaccines.

According to Mr. Kung, inactivated vaccines do not produce as many neutralising antibodies as mRNA vaccines, so he recommended the elderly receive mRNA vaccines. Citing medical journals, Mr. Ho strongly recommended the Comirnaty vaccine for all elderly people.

It was reported on March 20 2022 that the Hospital Authority had analysed 5,167 cases of deaths due to infection. Among the 1,486 deceased who had received vaccination, 1,292 were vaccinated with the Sinovac, accounting for 87 percent of the vaccinated deceased.

Based on the data, during the period from Feb. 26, 2021, to Dec. 23, 2023, a total of about 20,916,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered to Hongkongers under the authorities’ vaccination program, of which about 8,927,000 doses were administered with Sinovac vaccines and 11,989,600 doses were administered with Comirnaty vaccines. During the same period, a total of 120 deceased had been vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines within 14 days prior to their death, of which 78 people had received Sinovac vaccines, accounting for 8.74 per million of the total number of people who received Sinovac vaccines, and 42 people had received Comirnaty vaccines, accounting for 3.5 per million of the total number of people who Comirnaty vaccines.

Sinovac Production Completely Suspended

The effectiveness and safety of Sinovac vaccines have been questioned both in and outside of China since its launch.

Complaints abound on social media about the side effects of the vaccines, including measles, leukemia, and diabetes, and questions on whether the large number of sudden deaths were related to the Sinovac vaccines.

According to a document from Sinovac Research & Development Co., Ltd. circulated out on Jan. 10, the company ceased the production of all COVID-19 vaccines and there are currently no COVID-19 vaccines for sale. It had also decided to stop paying its employees performance-based wages for the COVID-19 project from January 2024 onwards.

A member of the product inquiry hotline at Sinovac Biotech Ltd. later confirmed that the production of Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccines had indeed ceased.

Sinovac Earned Hundreds of Billions From COVID

During the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the CCP authorities mandated 1.4 billion Chinese to be vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines, it was the time when Sinovac was making huge profits.

CoronaVac, the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinovac Research & Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Sinovac Biotech Ltd., was one of the first COVID-19 vaccines launched for use in China, and the most widely used and exported vaccine in the country.

Sinovac Biotech vaccines are displayed at a press conference during a media tour of a new factory built to produce COVID-19 vaccines, in Beijing on Sept. 24, 2020. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images)

The performance of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. also rapidly boosted with the promotion of CoronaVac. Following the approval of Sinovac vaccines for emergency use in China in June 2020, Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s 2020 revenue reached $510 million, which compares to its revenue of $246 million in 2019.

By the end of 2021, the company’s revenue surged to $19.37 billion, a year-on-year growth of 3,694.36 percent, while the net profit attributable to the shareholders soared to $8,467 million, a growth of 7,571.97 percent.

In 2022, with the drastic reduction in demand for Sinovac’s vaccines, the company’s full-year revenue plummeted to $1,493.0 million, a year-on-year decline of 92.3 percent, while net profit attributable to the shareholders dumped to $113.9 million.

An interim report in 2023 showed that Sinovac’s revenue continued to dip in the first half of the year, dropping 88 percent year-on-year, with a revenue of only $140.4 million. The gross profit turned from a surplus to a loss of $48.0 million.

Critic: Sinovac’s Top Shareholders Involve CCP Dignitaries

Among the top 10 shareholders of Sinovac Biotech Ltd., the first Chinese vaccine company listed in North America, except for Yin Weidong, the founder and CEO of the company who owns 8.89 percent of the shares, all other shareholders are foreign-invested organizations which have influential backgrounds, Zhou Xiaohui, a current affairs commentator, wrote for the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times.

For instance, the largest shareholder, Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), holding 15.07 percent of the shares, once participated in the investment of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin’s family.

The third largest shareholder, CDH Investments, holding 8.39 percent of the shares, not only has mastered a number of industries in China, such as pharmaceuticals, logistics, and high-tech, but also partners with a number of large U.S. pension funds and family funds, and boasts close ties with Jiang’s family.

The fourth largest shareholder, Prime Success, holding 8.25 percent of the shares, is backed by Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group Co., Ltd., which has been friends with several generations of CCP leaders. When the group became the largest shareholder in Chinese insurance giant Ping An Insurance Group in 2014, it was backed by Chinese tycoon Xiao Jianhua, who represents the interests of former CCP leader Zeng Qinghong’s family.

The fifth-largest shareholder, Vivo Capital, holding 8.25 percent of the shares, has close ties with Blackstone Group. Fu Shan, a partner of Vivo Capital, used to be a global partner and the China chief representative of Blackstone, which has close ties with the family of former CCP vice president Wang Qishan.

The sixth largest shareholder, Capital LLC, is Qiangxin Capital (4.69 percent), whose backer, Li Jiaqiang, is the chairman of Beijing Qiangxin Biotechnology Co. One of the historical shareholders of Qiangxin Capital was the Beijing Municipal Government, which invested in the company through the Zhongguancun Development Group.

“The Chinese people who were cheated thought that Sinovac was working for the benefit of the United States, not realizing that those it was sucking up to were the very people who made them so much money,” Mr. Zhou wrote.