Letters | Hong Kong must not neglect these two Covid-19 time-bomb groups

Readers urge flexibility to boost vaccine take-up among the elderly and people with low antibody levels, lament the costs of Hong Kong’s zero-Covid approach and the shortage of quarantine rooms, and propose making pharmacies a vaccine provider

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Pedestrians cross a road in Hong Kong on December 7. The Hong Kong government is worried about a Covid-19 fifth wave. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 7:00am, 7 Jan 2022

Our current Covid-19 strategy leaves out two time-bomb groups of people. The larger group is the huge number of unvaccinated senior citizens.

One prime reason is that vaccines can only be administered provided the senior citizen gives “informed consent”. This requires the vaccine recipient to comprehend what the consent entails. It is therefore not surprising that our health authorities have failed to obtain informed consent from most of our very old people.

Yet enforcement of vaccination without regard to informed consent will for sure lead to knee-jerk backlash objection. With Omicron one foot in Hong Kong’s door, now is the opportune moment for our community to consider whether it is appropriate to assume consent by default in our very senior population unless there is active objection from the individual. A non-government leader like our newly elected legislative member for the medical and health services constituency may like to lead this public consultation and debate.

The second time-bomb group consists of those whose immunity from Covid-19 vaccination had failed, or is likely to fail. This group is left out because our ongoing vaccine strategy is absolutely inflexible – it stares at this group but ignores it.

Failure to produce or maintain immunity from vaccination is well known. Causes notably include certain pre-existing medical conditions, and the taking of powerful medicines that suppress immunity.

Many are already documented to have low antibody levels through laboratory tests. Despite the obvious need to boost immunity for this group, our current Hong Kong Covid-19 vaccine strategy prohibits variation. Vaccination authorities should now lift current restrictions to allow flexible administration of additional vaccine doses whenever clinically indicated.

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.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Letters | Hong Kong must not neglect these two Covid-19 time-bomb groups

Letters | Hong Kong must not neglect these two Covid-19 time-bomb groups