Opinion | Why Hong Kong’s coronavirus vaccine effort is a victim of the city’s pandemic success

Hong Kong’s success in dealing with Covid-19 is now hampering its ability to persuade people to get vaccinated

Whatever its other failings, the government has supplied something close to a model service, only for much of the public to shrug their shoulders and walk away

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People stand in line outside a community vaccination centre administering the BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Hong Kong on April 5. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 6:45am, 30 Apr 2021Updated: 6:45am, 30 Apr 2021

My father and I got the second doses of our Covid-19 vaccines a couple of days and 10,000km apart. They were chemically identical, but there was one key difference.

My dad was getting his because of a successful policy, the UK’s vaccine roll-out, which has now administered first doses to almost two-thirds of the UK’s adult population. I was getting mine because of what political scientists call a policy failure, which is sadly the only way to describe Hong Kong’s vaccination programme to date.

Two months since it started, fewer than a million Hongkongers have had at least one dose. The current rolling average stands at less than 30,000 doses a day, and in all probability this rate will decline soon once those who are keenest have been vaccinated.

This is not, as in many places, the result of a lack of supply. At a time when people around the world are desperate to be vaccinated, Hong Kong has both ample supply and provision. It is now possible for anyone over the age of 16 to book a jab online within minutes.

You can get an appointment for the first dose within days. The second will follow three weeks later. The provision is well-resourced and flexible. You can choose which of two vaccines you want and where you get it. The process is quick, hassle-free and free of charge. This is about as good as it gets.

It is great news for those of us who want the vaccine, yet it is also evidence of how wrong things have gone here. No sensible vaccination policy would dish out doses to those in their late teens or early 20s – unless they had some pressing medical need – until they had vaccinated those who were older and more vulnerable. It is the same for those in their 50s, like me.