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Shades Off | Many questions remain on Covid-19 vaccines, but they’re the best option for now
- Hong Kong must address the legitimate worry about the efficacy and side effects of the three jabs it has chosen, especially Sinovac
- But no vaccine is 100 per cent effective at stopping disease, and vaccination may soon be our passport to travelling again
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Why you can trust SCMP
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Efficacy rates. Herd immunity. Transmission prevention. None of these terms bothered me a month ago. With Hong Kong expected to begin Covid-19 vaccination on Friday, they suddenly seem important. But I’m no scientist and I want to have a normal life again. I intend to get a shot, no matter where it comes from.
That may seem a rash decision. The vaccines Hong Kong intends to use, by China’s Sinovac, the United States-German partnership Pfizer-BioNTech and the British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, have been rushed in research, testing and production.
The usual years of data collection have been compressed into months. A government I’ve lost trust with that has mismanaged the Covid-19 response is driving the process and politics seems to be behind its decisions.
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There has been a worrying level of opaqueness about the Sinovac vaccine, which has unaccountably leapfrogged the Pfizer-BioNTech one to become the first to be used for immunisation.
02:06
Coronavirus Hong Kong: first Covid-19 vaccines land in city
Coronavirus Hong Kong: first Covid-19 vaccines land in city
Within days of Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee giving approval, one million jabs had arrived, an indecently quick shipping time that gave the impression the decision had been inevitable. The government’s 12-member vaccine advisory panel had given its recommendation for use, even though it has not attained the same international levels of acceptance as the other two.
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