Exclusive | Hong Kong can double its daily number of coronavirus jabs, minister says in plea to pick up the pace
- About 25,000 people are receiving shots every day, but city can handle twice that number, Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip tells the Post
- Some experts estimate it may take Hong Kong about 300 more days before it achieves a state of herd immunity
Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip Tak-kuen’s appeal for greater public participation came in a wide-ranging interview with the Post on Tuesday as his boss, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, said her administration was looking to open up the vaccination scheme to everyone aged 16 or older, depending on the supply of vaccines.
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Patrick Nip addresses slow take-up rate of Hong Kong's Covid-19 vaccination programme
Health authorities confirmed 12 more infections on Tuesday, four of them locally transmitted and eight brought in by travellers from France, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia.
“[Recently], we’ve had about 25,000 persons getting the first dose of vaccines a day. It’s not enough. We can handle 50,000 a day,” Nip told the Post.
Since the roll-out of the mass vaccination scheme in late February, 403,000 people have received their first dose, which accounts for 5.4 per cent of the 7.5 million population and 6.2 per cent of Hongkongers aged 16 or above.
Two types of vaccines, China’s Sinovac and the German-made BioNTech, are currently being administered at nearly 30 community vaccination centres, 18 general outpatient clinics and some 2,000 private clinics across the city.