China stepping up its vaccination programme is good for all of us

The faster the vaccines are rolled out, especially in the world’s most populous country, the faster the global economy will recover, writes Hamish McRae

China plans to get 40 per cent of its people vaccinated by June (Getty)

The path to freedom is getting those jabs put out to the world. China has switched its policy on fighting the virus from clamping down on people’s movements to getting as many as possible vaccinated – and that is leading forecasters to upgrade their expectations for growth.

Earlier this month China announced a plan to get 40 per cent of its people vaccinated by June. That’s half a billion. As a result, forecasts of its growth this year are being upgraded, with Oxford Economics now putting that at 9.3 per cent. That is massive and has an impact on the entire world, for China is now the world’s second-largest economy. The Oxford forecasters are ramping up their projections for other countries too, with India expected to grow by more than 11 per cent, the US by nearly 7 per cent and the UK by nearly 6 per cent. There are, they say, “grounds for cautious optimism”. 

There are two ways of looking at this. One is simply to acknowledge that the faster the vaccines are rolled out, the faster economies will recover. That is certainly true, and will be one of the features of this summer. The US and UK will follow this path, as Israel is already doing so.