Less than a third of Hong Kong hospital staff opted for COVID-19 jab

HONG Kong: Less than a third of full-time hospital staff in Hong Kong have opted to receive a vaccination against COVID-19, the local hospital authority said, according to a report by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) on Saturday.

About 17 percent of the overall population have received at least one shot against the virus, according to government figures.

The hospital authority’s chief executive Tony Ko warned that the shots had a limited shelf life. “So I think it is very important that both the public, and of course our colleagues as well, receive the vaccination as soon as possible,” Ko told RTHK.

Hong Kong’s slow uptake of the jabs has been fuelled by ongoing public mistrust of the government. Anti-government protests rocked the city in 2019, before a sweeping national security law was introduced, quashing opposition voices.

Beleaguered leader Carrie Lam kicked off the city’s vaccination programme in February, receiving her first shot of the China-made Sinovac jab during a live broadcast.

ON Saturday’s broadcast, experts estimated that 70 per cent of the population needed to be immune to Covid-19, either through vaccination or after recovery, in order to stop the pandemic.

Mistrust has also been sowed by the government conducting “ambush-style” quarantines, where hundreds of citizens at a time are required to isolate and undergo mandatory coronavirus testing.