LettersHong Kong could study Singapore and mainland examples on home vaccination for the elderly

Readers discuss the need for home vaccination, how to make universal testing safer, the attitudes of civil servants amid the fifth wave, and why children with Covid-19 shouldn’t be separated from their parents

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An elderly woman waits to receive a Covid-19 vaccine dose at a community vaccination center in Hong Kong on February 25. Hong Kong should bring vaccinations to the doors of the elderly. Photo: AP

Published: 11:30am, 1 Mar 2022

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Hospital Authority statistics show that the overwhelming majority of deaths due to Covid-19 are among those aged 60 and above, particularly the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

Knowing before the fifth wave that this age group was most at risk, the government had vaccinated residents of elderly residential institutions through outreach efforts such as the “assess and vaccinate” programme.

But with more than 90 per cent of our elderly living at home, according to 2016 Census figures, strategies are needed so that vaccinations reach them. Assistance in booking vaccinations was provided at district health centres, mobile vaccination was rolled out, and private doctors were incentivised to vaccinate the elderly through the Vaccination Subsidy Scheme.

But have these measures really reached the bedridden, whose caregivers are rightly concerned about the elderly person’s fitness for vaccination, and those who would like to be vaccinated, but are too scared to step out?

Although same-day tickets for the elderly are given out at community vaccination centres so that they do not need to book appointments, it ends up requiring two rounds of travelling to get the tickets before they run out. If the government is serious about inoculating most of the population, it must exhaust all means to reach the most vulnerable people.