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Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan receives a Covid-19 vaccine at the community vaccination centre at the Central Library in Causeway Bay on February 22. Photo: Sam Tsang
OpinionLetters

Letters | Hong Kong’s coronavirus vaccine plan must prioritise the clinically most vulnerable

  • This group includes those with terminal conditions who have already lived in abject terror for more than a year
Coronavirus pandemic
Letters
Letters
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The imminent commencement of Hong Kong’s delayed Covid-19 vaccination programme is a rare piece of good news in these troubled times.

Worldwide, governments are rolling out their programmes, and sensibly they are prioritising members of society at greatest risk of Covid-19 exposure. Hong Kong’s expert advisers have identified a whopping 2.4 million people who will be prioritised.
Where Hong Kong’s approach differs from other places is in its catch-all category of “chronic medical problems”; it seems that our so-called expert advisers have made no effort whatsoever to identify and prioritise the clinically most vulnerable. These are the people with conditions such as cancer which significantly reduce a person’s immune system and whom scientific research has shown are among the most at-risk members of society.

Clinically most vulnerable patients include many with terminal conditions who have already lived in abject terror for more than a year and are rightfully angry that the government and its advisers seem to be choosing to ignore their plight. This is a wrong that urgently needs righting and which will give hope back to some of the sickest members of society.

David Allardice, Mid-Levels

02:06

Coronavirus Hong Kong: first Covid-19 vaccines land in city

Coronavirus Hong Kong: first Covid-19 vaccines land in city

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 vaccine drama continues

After weeks of vacillating over the Covid-19 vaccination, the Hong Kong government has finally rolled out its programme (“Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam gets city’s first Covid-19 jab”, February 22). Naturally, the question on everybody’s mind is, “To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?”

Normally, getting the precious jab would be, as Shakespeare’s play Hamlet goes, “a consummation devoutly to be wished”. But then there is the dread of something after that, “the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of”.

Tony Hung, Ma On Shan

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