HSBC instructs all 30,000 staff in Hong Kong to get vaccinated against coronavirus as city pushes to reopen China border
- HKMA, other regulators asked financial sector to ‘proactively encourage’ staff to get their Covid-19 jabs
- HSBC and its Hang Seng Bank unit have about 30,000 employees on staff in Hong Kong
Staff members who have not received their first dose of the vaccine should do so by November 30 or submit to a Covid-19 test every two weeks, according to a memo issued by the bank. HSBC is based in London, but counts Hong Kong as its largest market.
The contents of the memo were confirmed by a bank spokeswoman on Friday.
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Hong Kong’s Covid response is more ‘pursuing politics’ than ‘following science’
The Hong Kong Economic Times reported the HSBC memo earlier on Friday.
Many global banks have been encouraging their employees to get vaccinated after months of working from home or limiting the number of people in offices to avoid sidelining teams.
Nearly 69 per cent of Hong Kong’s population have received at least one dose of the vaccine, but the city lags behind vaccination rates in the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
Other financial centres, such as London, New York and Singapore, are removing travel restrictions for the vaccinated and adopting other measures to make life easier for those who have taken the vaccine.