Coronavirus: number of Hong Kong toddlers receiving jabs far too low, says head of government’s vaccine committee
- Less than 1 per cent of children below the age of three have either received Covid-19 vaccine jab or are booked for one, according to Professor Lau Yu-lun
- Lau, who chairs Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, calls figure ‘unsatisfactory’ and urges doctors to help ease parents’ concerns over shots
Professor Lau Yu-lung, who chairs the Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, on Saturday said that only about 1,000 out of about 120,000 toddlers below the age of three had received or were booked for a coronavirus shot since the government made inoculations to this age group available on Thursday.
“I was a bit happy, but it was still unsatisfactory to see there were about 1,000 toddlers who were booked or received a jab over the past two days,” he told a radio programme, adding some parents were still concerned about the safety of the vaccines.
The paediatrician warned families that two children under the age of three had died after contracting Covid-19 and he stressed the recent rise in infections had not yet peaked.
“The reproductive rate of the coronavirus remains above one, which indicates that the pandemic has not yet peaked,” he said, referring to the estimated number of people each coronavirus patient could infect.
Lau urged other paediatricians and family doctors to help address any concerns raised by the parents of young children, saying he hoped the inoculation rate among toddlers could reach at least 50 to 60 per cent before winter, when experts expect the number of daily cases will worsen.