At present, unvaccinated civil servants are required to take a test every two weeks.

Hong Kong confirmed one imported coronavirus case on Sunday, a 56-year-old man who arrived from Britain on November 1 and was found to be carrying the L452R mutant strain of the virus. The infection took the city’s overall tally to 12,368, with 213 related deaths. Fewer than five people tested preliminary-positive.

An earlier reported case, meanwhile, involving an 18-year-old male patient who travelled to Singapore from Hong Kong retested as a false positive, the city state’s health authority said. Hong Kong’s health department said his close contacts had been released from a quarantine centre.

Both vaccines on offer locally, from mainland China’s Sinovac and German manufacturer BioNTech, will be available.

The government has received about 39,900 bookings for a third dose in the three days since registration opened on Friday.

As added motivation, the government was likely to offer a day to civil servants who received a third dose, said Nip, who is in charge of the city’s vaccination drive.

“Civil servants received paid leave for getting the first two Covid-19 shots. It’s reasonable to offer them the same for the booster shot,” he said, calling on private companies to do the same.

On Friday, HSBC confirmed it had told staff who had not received their first dose of a vaccine to do so by November 30 or face Covid-19 testing every two weeks.

Earlier in the week, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Securities and Futures Commission and other watchdogs had urged that formula on the financial industry as a whole. About 286,100 people work in the finance and insurance sector.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Friday said she expected quarantine-free travel between the city and the mainland to resume early in the new year, confirming an earlier Post report that a preliminary reopening of the border could come as early as next month.

Lam said she believed that by February, enough quarantine-free travel would be taking place that the government could hold major events attended by businesspeople based either side of the border.

When asked if cross-border travellers would be required to get a third jab, Nip on Sunday only said it would be revealed when reopening was formally finalised.

Separately, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said mainland health experts were likely to visit Hong Kong to inspect pandemic control measures soon.

“Measures should be taken to maintain zero infections and make sure reopening the border will not bring extra risks to the mainland,” Chan told a radio show, saying an online meeting last Tuesday between officials of both sides had seen both governments reach a consensus.

Hong Kong has recently instituted a flurry of measures aimed at bringing the city more into line with Beijing’s approach to pandemic containment.

Last week, the city revealed that exemptions to its tough quarantine rules would end for most groups, including foreign diplomatic personnel and top business executives, as of November 12.

Frontline airport workers are also now required to be tested every three days.

Health codes, or a similar system requiring mandatory tracing and the storing of users’ travel history could also eventually be adopted, Chan said on Sunday.

“If health codes are to be adopted, real name and address registration will be required to ensure that once a person diagnosed with Covid-19 enters the mainland from Hong Kong, they can be tracked as soon as possible.”