Letters | Hong Kong coronavirus vaccines: non-resident elderly family members left out
- While authorities have been helpful in making arrangements for non-resident elderly family members to remain, getting them a vaccine is a different story
As dependency visas are not usually granted to parents or parents in-law of Hong Kong residents, such family members are often required to remain in Hong Kong on the basis of other visas such as the Exit-Entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macau (EEP).
Although the Immigration Department has helpfully arranged to extend the validity periods of these EEPs during the course of the pandemic, thereby sparing such persons from having to undertake risky travel to extend this validity, their ability to register for vaccination remains unresolved.
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Any resident with such elderly family members is likely to be given the runaround by various government departments.
The representative on the Covid Vaccination Programme hotline told us to contact the Immigration Department, who suggested we contact the Department of Health, who simply told us that my elderly mother-in-law, who will be 70 this year and who has lived with us since before we relocated to Hong Kong, was not entitled to vaccination.