On March 18, the Shandong Provincial People's Government Information Office held a press conference on the 2022 epidemic prevention and control work in Jinan.

Zhang Liansan, executive deputy director of the Office of the Leading Group (Headquarters) for Coordinating Epidemic Prevention and Control and Economic Operation of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, introduced that the elderly have weak immune functions and are susceptible and high-risk groups of new coronary pneumonia.

Shandong is a province with a large elderly population. There are about 21.221 million elderly people over the age of 60 in the province, and the total number of elderly people ranks first in the country.

　　Xu Qing, deputy director of the Immunization and Prevention Management Institute of the Shandong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, introduced that Shandong Province has recently started to implement sequential booster immunization with the new coronavirus vaccine.

Using a new coronavirus vaccine with a different technical route from the basic immunization for booster vaccination is called sequential boosting; using the new coronavirus vaccine with the same technical route as the basic immunization for booster vaccination is called homologous boosting.

According to national requirements, 18 patients who have completed 2 doses of basic immunization for 6 months and have not received booster immunizations using the new coronavirus inactivated vaccine produced by Sinopharm Zhongsheng Beijing Institute, Sinopharm Zhongsheng Wuhan Institute and Beijing Kexing Zhongwei Company. People over the age of 60 (including those over 60 years old) can independently choose homologous booster or sequential booster; for those who have completed the booster immunization of the new coronavirus vaccine, there is no need for repeated booster vaccination at this stage.

At present, both sequential and homologous boosting of the new coronavirus vaccine are free of charge.

　　Clinical trial studies have shown that both homologous boosting and sequential boosting of the new coronavirus vaccine can effectively increase the level of neutralizing antibodies in recipients, and the antibody spectrum is also wider.

The new coronavirus vaccine booster is safe, and everyone can rest assured.

The elderly remain a high-risk group for Covid-19 infection.

It also calls on the public, especially the elderly, to complete the whole course of the new coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible.

(Zhang Shun)

Responsible editor: [Li Ji]