Editorial | Ending free vaccines simply false economy

The public may be forgiven for feeling a little confused about the Covid-19 situation – except for general relief that control measures are a thing of the past. But the infection risk now is not so clear. Health minister Lo Chung-mau said in an interview with mainland media that the Health Bureau estimated up to 10,000 people were contracting the virus each day, including reinfections, although one expert estimated the caseload may be five times that. Lo expressed confidence the outbreak remained manageable.

On the other hand, government pandemic adviser Professor Lau Yu-lung of the University of Hong Kong said the current “small wave” of infections had peaked, with the confirmed daily number reaching more than 500 a day this month. He added, however, that occupancy rates in medicine and paediatric departments at public hospitals had exceeded and approached 100 per cent respectively.

Given that infections are generally mild and short-lived, with most people having a measure of immunity from at least three jabs or previous infection or both, an estimate of thousands a day is believable. The emphasis now is on vaccinating the 15 per cent of the population who have not had at least three jabs, including 30 per cent of the unvaccinated who are aged 80 or above, the most vulnerable group along with those with underlying illnesses or weak immunity.

Vaccination goes to the heart of the government’s strategy to give everyone at least a measure of immunity or resilience to infection. But it has just stopped offering free additional boosters on top of three jabs to residents under 50 who do not fall in the high-risk categories. Instead, they will have to get a fourth or fifth dose at a private clinic at their own expense. Given the current overlap of Covid and a flu season, which is by many accounts more severe, the likelihood of a repeat by next autumn, and the ever-present risk of a severe mutation of the virus, this sounds problematic. The government should reconsider, or at least explain its reasoning.

After taking into account the cost of hospitalisation of Covid cases, medical treatment and economic loss through absenteeism and so on, scrapping free jabs for a large proportion of the unvaccinated does not sound like a very convincing attempt to economise.