Just 5 per cent of Hong Kong care home residents have received Covid-19 jabs 4 months into inoculation drive
- In contrast, 87 per cent of doctors working at Department of Health have been vaccinated
- Elderly Commission chairman warns low rate among care home residents could put them in a more vulnerable position if social-distancing rules are relaxed
In contrast, 87 per cent of doctors working at the Department of Health have been vaccinated.
Care home residents were among priority groups first given access to Covid-19 jabs when the vaccination drive began more than four months ago. But inoculation statistics provided by Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee on Wednesday showed the rate was the lowest in a list of groups for which figures were available, including domestic helpers, medical professionals and other health care workers.
As of early July, only 4,300 residents of care homes for the elderly or disabled had received at least one Covid-19 shot, accounting for 5 per cent of the group. Nearly half of the workers of such facilities, or 19,500 employees, had been jabbed.
Doctors in the public sector attained a much higher rate, with 77 per cent of those under the Hospital Authority, which manages the city’s public hospitals, inoculated on top of the 87 per cent at the health department.
But the rates for nurses were much lower, with 52 per cent for those working for the department and 43 per cent – the second-worst figure on the list – for those at public hospitals inoculated.
About 177,000 domestic helpers, or around 48 per cent of the group, had received a shot.