Coronavirus: delayed BioNTech vaccine to arrive in Hong Kong ‘on Saturday’, city records 13 new infections

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Hong Kong’s first doses of the BioNTech vaccine may arrive on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 2:51pm, 25 Feb 2021Updated: 8:40pm, 25 Feb 2021

The delayed BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in Hong Kong on Saturday at the earliest, according to a source, while the city on Thursday recorded 13 new coronavirus infections.

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 situation has eased in the past week, with its mass vaccination drive to launch on Friday, but neighbouring Guangdong province on Wednesday announced it would only accept coronavirus tests done by nasal or combined nasal-throat swabs for arrivals from the city starting from next month.

Deep-throat saliva samples, a method widely used in Hong Kong’s free screening programme, would not be accepted.

Some 70,000 residents have already fully booked slots for the first two weeks of the city’s vaccination drive. The mainland-made Sinovac jab would be offered at five community centres and 18 general outpatient clinics under the Hospital Authority in this initial phase of the scheme.

The BioNTech vaccine, jointly developed by the German firm and American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, was originally set to arrive in the city on Thursday. But the vaccines could not be shipped from Germany as procedures for export had “yet to be completed”, the Hong Kong government had said.

The first 1 million doses of the vaccine are expected to be delivered to the city via two flights.