Explainer | Coronavirus: what does getting vaccinated offer Hongkongers and how will it affect travel, quarantine and social-distancing rules?
- With Pfizer-BioNTech jabs running again, the Post offers a guide to the city’s wider coronavirus vaccination programme and its implications for participants and those opting out
- More than 500,000 people in Hong Kong have received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine so far, accounting for 6.7 per cent of the population
The development returns the Hong Kong campaign to a two-vaccine approach, with doses from Chinese company Sinovac also being administered to the public.
While both versions were accepted for emergency use in Hong Kong, BioNTech’s jab has also secured approval from the World Health Organization (WHO), which is expected to do the same for the Sinovac one by the end of April.
Centre for Health Protection controller Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin said last month there was a chance for further easing social-distancing rules once more than half of the population had been immunised.
With Hong Kong’s vaccination campaign back on course, we look to answer some of your questions about the programme.
Can fully vaccinated people still contract and spread Covid-19?
Yes, but it is less likely. People who are fully vaccinated will have reduced susceptibility to infection if they have immunity either through prior SARS-CoV-2 infection – the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease – or through vaccination. Inoculation does not fully protect recipients from infection, but those who are exposed to the virus may not become as sick.