By David Kirton
SHENZHEN,&nbsp;China&nbsp;(Reuters) -&nbsp;Headhunter&nbsp;Candice&nbsp;knows&nbsp;the&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;infections&nbsp;engulfing&nbsp;Beijing&nbsp;and&nbsp;much&nbsp;of&nbsp;China&nbsp;will&nbsp;soon&nbsp;hit&nbsp;her&nbsp;home&nbsp;of&nbsp;Shenzhen&nbsp;city, but&nbsp;she&nbsp;would&nbsp;rather&nbsp;face&nbsp;it&nbsp;without&nbsp;a&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;booster,&nbsp;saying&nbsp;she&nbsp;fears&nbsp;potential&nbsp;side&nbsp;effects&nbsp;more&nbsp;than&nbsp;the&nbsp;virus.
The 28-year-old took two doses of Sinovac's CoronaVac last year, hoping it&nbsp;would&nbsp;make travel easier, but&nbsp;she&nbsp;has since grown&nbsp;more&nbsp;sceptical, citing stories from friends about health impacts, as well as similar health warnings on social media.
"I don't trust it,"&nbsp;she&nbsp;said, speaking on the condition that only&nbsp;her&nbsp;first name be used.&nbsp;Candice&nbsp;said&nbsp;she&nbsp;has refused to participate in recent vaccination drives organised by&nbsp;her&nbsp;local community.
Candice&nbsp;is part of a group that demonstrates how&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;hesitancy still runs deep in mainland&nbsp;China, academics say, which poses a growing headache for&nbsp;Beijing&nbsp;as it tries to persuade&nbsp;more&nbsp;to get vaccinated in the&nbsp;face&nbsp;of a spike in&nbsp;infections&nbsp;after the lifting of strict anti-COVID&nbsp;measures.
Officially,&nbsp;China's vaccination rate is above 90%, but the rate for&nbsp;boostered adults drops to&nbsp;57.9%,&nbsp;and&nbsp;to 42.3% for people aged 80&nbsp;and&nbsp;above, according to government data, prompting warnings that the country could see over 1.5 million deaths after lifting curbs such as lockdowns&nbsp;and&nbsp;mass testing that held most&nbsp;virus&nbsp;spread at bay.
In September, an article by a publication under the Chinese Center for Disease Control&nbsp;and&nbsp;Prevention (CDC) acknowledged coverage of older adults was poor,&nbsp;and&nbsp;that the absence of local doctors in&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;drives, poor medical understanding&nbsp;and&nbsp;a lack of insurance for&nbsp;potential&nbsp;side&nbsp;effects&nbsp;all dampened enthusiasm.
"It's a very special case in&nbsp;China&nbsp;because people felt very safe for a long time," said Stephanie Jean-Tsang, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who specialises in messaging around health.
"People need to realise what the risks are&nbsp;and&nbsp;how beneficial the&nbsp;vaccines are &ndash; it took time for Hong Kong citizens&nbsp;and&nbsp;the elderly to realise this as well."
Authorities have not made vaccination mandatory amid signs that the public&nbsp;would&nbsp;push back against any such move. Last week&nbsp;China&nbsp;said it&nbsp;would&nbsp;start to offer a second&nbsp;booster&nbsp;- or fourth shot - for high-risk groups&nbsp;and&nbsp;people over 60 years old.
Overseas-developed&nbsp;vaccines are unavailable in mainland&nbsp;China&nbsp;to the general public, which has relied on inactivated shots by Sinopharm, Sinovac's Coronavac&nbsp;and&nbsp;other&nbsp;domestically developed options for its&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;rollout&nbsp;and&nbsp;which the medical community has found to be safe. It has also yet to introduce its own version of an mRNA&nbsp;vaccine.
While&nbsp;China's medical community in general doesn't doubt the safety of&nbsp;China's&nbsp;vaccines, questions remain over their efficacy compared to foreign-made mRNA counterparts, said Kelly Lei, a doctor in the southern Chinese&nbsp;city&nbsp;of&nbsp;Shenzhen.
In late November, the hashtag 'Sinovac&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;counterfeit' surged to five million views on the Twitter-like Weibo platform, with many posts discussing lumps&nbsp;and&nbsp;hair loss allegedly caused by the locally made&nbsp;vaccine.
"At least a half of doctors&nbsp;and&nbsp;educated people wanted to get the mRNA ones&nbsp;and&nbsp;refused to get the Chinese ones," Lei said.
"After a while, people see no hope&nbsp;and&nbsp;also they are kind of forced to get the Chinese ones, so they had to accept it. Some doctors talked to me,&nbsp;and&nbsp;said it's useless anyway, why waste the money."
Lei said many of&nbsp;her&nbsp;friends are looking to visit the neighbouring Chinese territory of Macau, where mainlanders can receive mRNA&nbsp;vaccines.
Demand&nbsp;has surged in recent weeks, visitors to Macau say, with the online booking platform for vaccination showing no bookings available until Jan. 21.
But after jettisoning some of the world's toughest anti-COVID&nbsp;curbs last week,&nbsp;China&nbsp;is now experiencing a wave of&nbsp;infections&nbsp;across the country, prompting some unable to travel to Macau or abroad to opt for the Chinese&nbsp;vaccines in desperation.
"In Guangzhou...things have started to get wild. They at least want something for some protection," Lei said.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by David Kirton; additional reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Brenda Goh&nbsp;and&nbsp;Michael Perry)

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'I don't trust it:' Vaccine hesitancy lingers even as China COVID cases surge