All Eyes on Chinese Vaccines

Sinovac and Cansino are two Chinese vaccines that received the most media attention in Malaysia.

Both Cansino and Sinovac skyrocketed in news exposure on 22nd December 2020 with both almost reaching 100 news.

The surge in media exposure was due to an announcement that the Malaysian government have procured extra from China vaccine suppliers mainly Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics.

Sinovac would later dominate the news exposure in January 2021 with spike happening from the 11th to 14th day.

The rise in news exposure is caused by the deal made by Pharmaniaga to obtain the vaccine for cheap from Sinovac Biotech and Indonesia move to roll out Sinovac vaccines with the President to receive the vaccines first.

The media on both spiked events within the news dependency are mainly covered by English media mainly on the 21st to 23rd December 2020 where there are only two Malay media presents in the list.

During the spike in January 2021, the Malay media have covered more news on the topic as well but mainly on the bottom of the list.

CanSino Biotech only receive one news spike on the 22nd December 2020 and the media that covered the news are main English media, but the two Malay media are at the top 5 of the lists.

China recently has been strengthening its ‘Health Silk Road’ in terms of vaccine development as a diplomacy tool to increase their global influence even though their vaccines were doubted at first because the price was low.