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August 3, 2021

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HK gets tough on 4 key sectors over vaccinations

Source: Agencies | 00:00 UTC+8 August 3, 2021 | Print Edition

Hong Kong civil servants, teachers and health-care workers must get vaccinated against the coronavirus or pay for regular testing, the city’s leader announced yesterday, as her administration adopted a push into mandatory inoculations.

Authorities were unsatisfied with a slow initial take-up of vaccines, although the numbers have improved in recent months after various businesses announced a range of perks for those who take vaccines, including a lottery prize of an apartment worth about US$1 million. After six months, 36 percent of the city’s 7.5 million residents are fully vaccinated with two jabs while 48 percent have received one dose.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced yesterday a new push to raise the city’s vaccination rate by making jabs compulsory for four sectors: civil servants, health-care workers, care home staff and school teachers.

Vaccination rates vary between those sectors — from 70 percent among civil servants to just 47 percent among teachers. “There is much room for improvement,” Lam said.

Those who refuse vaccinations will have to be tested twice a week and pay for the cost out of their own pockets unless they have a valid medical reason not to be inoculated.

“If it’s purely a personal option not to get vaccinated and help society achieve herd immunity, that’s not something a responsible government should allow or tolerate,” Lam said.

Infections have remained low as Hong Kong has been all but closed to non-residents for most of the last 18 months and all arrivals must undergo lengthy quarantine in designated hotels.

But the zero COVID-19 strategy has imposed tough economic costs on the city, once a major international transport hub, and added to a sense of complacency among the public.

Lam said that vaccinated people arriving in Hong Kong from countries deemed as medium-risk who present a negative COVID-19 test and positive antibody test could spend seven days instead of 14 days in mandatory hotel quarantine.

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