Coronavirus: bookings for delayed Pfizer-BioNTech jabs to open in Hong Kong; restaurant rules tightened as cluster grows
- Health experts say cluster indicates city’s restaurant employees should be among those given vaccination priority
- A 79-year-old male patient at Princess Margaret Hospital becomes the city’s 200th victim of the pandemic
Bookings for the long-delayed Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus jabs would open on Wednesday, officials said on Monday, as Hong Kong health authorities racing to contain a growing restaurant cluster announced tightened guidelines for eateries.
Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip Tak-kuen said that 140,000 doses of the vaccine, jointly developed by German firm BioNTech and American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, would be available in the first phase of the roll-out.
Priority residents, including those aged 60 and above, and frontline medical workers will start receiving jabs next Wednesday.
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Hong Kong begins mass vaccination programme with Covid-19 jabs developed on the Chinese mainland
But the city’s vaccination drive has been complicated by the cluster of infections at Mr Ming’s Chinese Dining in the high-end K11 Musea shopping centre, which on Monday increased by four cases to 48 in total.
Health officials confirmed 14 new cases citywide on Monday as Hong Kong recorded its 200th pandemic-related fatality, a 79-year-old man with pre-existing medical conditions who died at Princess Margaret Hospital. The city’s overall tally of infections stood at 11,019.
Five of the latest cases were from unknown sources and three imported from abroad. About 10 people tested preliminary-positive.
In a bid to prevent further outbreaks, authorities said they were tightening guidelines for restaurants and requiring them to hire specialised table cleaning staff and increase the air change rate within the premises to at least six times an hour.