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Letters | Coronavirus in Hong Kong: sick of lockdowns? Then get vaccinated
- Without widespread vaccination uptake, we are doomed to never-ending cycles of testing, tracing, quarantine, lockdowns and the closing of borders
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I could not agree more with the column “Vaccination is the means, don’t forget the end goal of making Hong Kong Covid-safe for the economy to take off” (April 18).
Here is my prediction. It is mission impossible within the next year for Hong Kong to reduce new Covid-19 infections to a perpetual zero and to open our borders to the world. Hong Kong’s Covid-19 tracking and tracing, while exemplary, is at best a stopgap measure. It leaves the population unprotected and highly vulnerable because no herd immunity develops.
But vaccines offer a sea change to this picture. Widespread vaccine uptake is the only way forward. Without it, we are doomed to never-ending cycles of testing, tracing, quarantine, lockdowns and the closing of borders.
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It is free and available for Hong Kong people (unlike in some other parts of the world). And the safety of taking a vaccine compared with contracting Covid-19, which has claimed more than 3 million lives, is of an almost unthinkable order of magnitude. Hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been given worldwide with spectacularly protective effect.
07:42
Patrick Nip addresses slow take-up rate of Hong Kong's Covid-19 vaccination programme
Patrick Nip addresses slow take-up rate of Hong Kong's Covid-19 vaccination programme
I am practising the public health measures that I preach. While recognising the need to maintain physical distancing, wearing a mask and other measures, I feel relieved and safer after my two jabs plus two weeks. My thanks to the Hong Kong government.
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