Can segregation rules at bars, restaurants really help raise Hong Kong vaccination rate?

With its ‘vaccine bubble’, the government has offloaded the responsibility to boost vaccine uptake onto struggling bars and restaurants
The complex arrangement also disregards those who have recovered from Covid-19, or have genuine reasons not to take the vaccine

Alice Wu

Published: 9:15am, 3 May 2021

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Since February, Israel has deployed a “green pass” system that allows those who have been vaccinated or who have recovered from the coronavirus to regain access to hotels, restaurants, gyms, cinemas and cultural and sporting events. In the case of those under 16, they will be allowed the same access if they test negative for Covid-19.

Israel is reopening because it has one of the world’s most successful vaccine roll-outs, with 60 per cent of the population having received at least one dose, and 56 per cent fully vaccinated.

Britain has been doing exceptionally well in the vaccination department as well, in stark contrast to the headlines about its shocking mismanagement of the coronavirus response last year. According to the latest figures, 51 per cent of Britons have received at least one dose of vaccine. However, while the British government is set to require vaccine passports for international travel, it has dropped plans to require Covid-19 status certificates for entry to pubs and restaurants domestically.

Domestic or international vaccine passports are being rolled out, or considered, in various countries. Certainly, these programmes provide an incentive for people to get the jab. The thinking behind these programmes is that restrictions that limit freedoms and social activities should be tailored to verifiable risk.

There’s nothing controversial here, but how this thinking is put into practice can raise concerns.

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Given the different cultural, social and political contexts that governments have to navigate, there really is no gold standard, though all must be mindful of the danger of granting privileges on the basis of health and fitness.

I’m grateful that ample vaccines are available for us and that I can choose whether to be vaccinated, and if so when and which type of vaccine to take. I consider it my personal duty to be vaccinated.

In Hong Kong, where the single-dose vaccination rate is a dismal 12 per cent, our policymakers have simply offloaded their responsibility to boost vaccine uptake onto struggling businesses – especially the already hard-hit food and beverage industry. A byzantine vaccine bubble has been designed for restaurants, bars and nightclubs: four sets of rules, four kinds of seating, plus various specifications for employees’ vaccination status, patrons’ vaccination status, and whether patrons are using the government’s risk-exposure app.

Never mind the politics, Hongkongers: get vaccinated

The arrangement is so complicated, and verification of vaccination proof so incredibly hard, that it places an undue burden on already struggling businesses. Small businesses, in particular, are caught between a rock and a hard place. They do not have the flexibility to re-allocate manpower – to simply reassign employees who can’t take the jab to desk jobs, for instance. Yet, they can’t let these employees go without running the risk of breaking anti-discrimination laws. This is surely a flashpoint for workplace conflict, and there will be others.

It’s enough to make our heads spin, but let’s pause to note a striking difference between Hong Kong’s vaccine bubble and Israel’s green-pass system. The system our government has dreamt up completely disregards those who have recovered from Covid-19, others who have genuine reasons not to get the jab, and those who have tested negative.

Couple that with the inconsistent policy on the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble (inbound travellers from Singapore do not need to be vaccinated, but outbound travellers from Hong Kong do), and it’s pretty clear that the government has developed a multi-tier segregation system to arm-twist people here into receiving the vaccine.

And making vaccination compulsory for foreign domestic helpers when it is not mandatory for their employers or for Singapore travel bubble visitors just stinks of discrimination.

This is our policymakers’ brilliant solution to a problem they created: after all, our high levels of vaccine hesitancy come down to a lack of trust, and our government’s failure to dispel misinformation is surely at the heart of the matter.

Professor Lau Yu-lung, a member of the government’s advisory panel on Covid-19 vaccines, recently wrote in a local medical journal that Hong Kong should have been in an “enviable position” as one of the first regions to reach herd immunity, having already secured sufficient vaccine supply for the population. Yet, we’re nowhere near this enviable position because our government can’t think of better ways to incentivise inoculation.

So here are some suggestions. What about relaxing quarantine requirements for those who have taken either of the coronavirus vaccines procured for the city? Exempting vaccinated individuals from a 21-day quarantine? Or allowing them to isolate at home, instead of dragging them off to a quarantine camp?

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA