Coronavirus: Sinovac jabs available for Hong Kong children as young as 5 from next week; 5 new Covid-19 cases logged
- Civil service chief reveals vaccine move amid bid to ramp up city’s inoculation drive as it weathers a fifth Covid-19 wave
- Health authorities confirm five new coronavirus infections, including an aircraft cleaner in the second such case within a week
Health officials said infection control training for aircraft cleaners would need to be stepped up, after a second worker tested positive for the coronavirus within a week.
Among the confirmed cases was a security guard at the government’s Penny’s Bay quarantine camp who worked with a colleague infected earlier. Another confirmed case was a family member of an infected employee of investment bank Citic Securities.
The other three cases were imported. The latest infections took the tally to 13,030, with 213 related deaths. About 10 preliminary-positive cases were also recorded, including the aircraft cleaner, 41.
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Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said the airport worker usually cleaned aircraft kitchens and washrooms, and also the cockpit if no aircrew members were present.
“Whole genome sequencing will be conducted to see whether this worker is linked to other known cases,” Chuang told a press briefing. “But if some cargo aircrew members didn’t enter Hong Kong, we will not know their infection status.”
Another aircraft cleaner was confirmed with Covid-19 last Sunday, with her infection found to be linked to an imported case from the United States.
“For aircraft cleaners, we need to step up infection control training, to make sure they [use] personal protective equipment with proper procedures,” Chuang said.
The female cleaner’s home at Wang Sin House on Tsing Yi’s Cheung Wang Estate was subject to a lockdown and compulsory testing of residents on Saturday night.
Tung Moon House on Sham Shui Po’s Tai Hang Tung Estate was also placed under overnight lockdown after a 43-year-old resident who returned from Pakistan in late December was found to be preliminary-positive in a test done on Friday.
In another development, 35 customers who had visited the Causeway Bay branch of Japanese hotpot restaurant Nabe Urawa at the same time as three infected patrons have been traced. Two others who paid in cash have not been found.
To align with tightened social-distancing measures to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, the Transport Department on Saturday said franchised bus operators had been allowed to cut the frequency of services on 341 routes from January 7 to 20 to cope with a drop in patronage and had again submitted applications for more temporary adjustments.
To boost vaccinations, Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip Tak-kuen, who heads the city’s inoculation drive, told a radio programme that services at three existing community vaccination centres and about 1,000 private clinics offering Sinovac jabs would be extended to those aged five to 11 before Lunar New Year.
A similar extension for the German-made BioNTech vaccine would only take place after the festive period, however, with the government planning to set up several centres for this purpose. Children in this age group will receive a third of the adult dose for the vaccine.
“There are about 400,000 children aged between five and 11. One vaccination centre is not enough to cater to BioNTech shots for them,” Nip said. “Our target is to have vaccination centres on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and the New Territories. We expect to open several centres specifically for this.”
Hong Kong panel suggests smaller doses of BioNTech vaccine for kids aged 5
Earlier this week, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the age threshold for the Sinovac vaccine would be lowered from 12 years to five, with the jabs set to be offered in schools after the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on February 1.
The government in November approved the use of Sinovac on children as young as three, though priority was given to adolescents at the time.
“These centres for children aged between five and 11 for BioNTech shots will be opened after Lunar New Year. Relevant experts and medical staff need to familiarise themselves with the process of administering a reduced dosage to these children,” Nip said on Saturday.
Many countries have started vaccinating children aged under 12. Mainland China has been administering the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines to children as young as three. Singapore, the United States, Britain and the European Union are among countries and regions vaccinating children as young as five with BioNTech.
Among the eligible population, the vaccination rate for those with a first dose stood at 76.1 per cent, with 70.1 per cent having received their second shot and more than 600,000 people their third jab. The mark for those aged 80 or above remained low at 26.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said the government would strive to provide more sites for vaccination, noting the surge in demand for jabs.
“We are glad to see that the vaccination rate has increased in the past two weeks. Every day there are about 40,000 people getting vaccinated, be it the first dose, second dose or third,” she said.
“We see that the elderly population’s vaccination rate has increased as well, but we hope, especially for those over 80, that the figure will continue to rise … We are doing our best to provide more sites for vaccination and to facilitate people wishing to have their first, second or third dose.”
Eleven general outpatient clinics under the Hospital Authority which were originally expected to offer the Sinovac vaccine will instead provide BioNTech jabs from January 25. Another 12 clinics will provide Sinovac jabs, bringing the total number of public clinics with the vaccine to 14.
Professor Lau Yu-lung, chairman of the Centre for Health Protection’s Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, said more than 500,000 residents aged 70 or older still had not received their first vaccine dose.
“If unfortunately they are infected, their chances of developing serious conditions or even dying will be up to 20 times higher than vaccinated elderly people,” he warned.
Lau said he hoped at least 300,000 unvaccinated elderly people could step forward to receive their first jabs around Lunar New Year to guard against the community transmission risk brought on by Omicron.
Separately, Professor Gabriel Leung, dean of HKU’s faculty of medicine, warned that the Omicron transmission rate could be as high as 2½ people for every infectious individual, based on a study.
In view of the newly tightened curbs on evening dine-in services and ban on 15 types of venues, Leung said the government could relax restrictions on restaurants and some venues such as golf courses and football pitches.
“The government could adopt a more humanised and scientific approach. The virus won’t come out only at night. The government’s restrictive measures only aim to discourage people from going out,” he said. “The 6pm curfew on restaurants could be further relaxed to 8pm so people can have an early dinner.”
Additional reporting by Nadia Lam
