BEIJING—On March 24, a neatly printed announcement appeared on the doors of my Beijing apartment building. “The registration for COVID-19 vaccination in Xiushui Community of Jianwai Street has started,” it said, explaining how foreign citizens and their families can register to get a jab. I promptly asked myself the question that millions around the world have pondered this past year: Am I finally going to get vaccinated against COVID-19?
But when living in China, one also tends to add this question: Should I get vaccinated? For medical reasons, the hospital where I get my health checkups says yes, I should. But COVID-19 seems to have retreated so thoroughly—on Monday China reported no new locally transmitted cases and just eight “imported” cases, referring to people testing positive after arriving from abroad—that life is back to a sort of normal. For the future, though, I wonder if getting vaccinated here and now might lead to hassles when I start traveling in the West again.
