Beijing city offers elderly COVID shot-related health insurance to ease hesitancy

China's capital is offering elderly residents state-backed insurance for 'medical accidents' linked to COVID-19 shots to ease vaccination hesitancy among those most vulnerable, as Beijing ramps up inoculations during its worst outbreak. Chinese officials have pointed to relatively lower vaccination rates among the elderly as a key weakness in its 'dynamic zero-COVID' strategy. The city of 22 million people had fully inoculated 97.7% of its adult residents as of September last year, but only 80.6% of people aged 60 and over had received their first dose by mid-April this year, according to city officials.