Abacus | Vaccinated Hongkongers could save Cathay by leaving on a jet plane, if they’re spared quarantine

It is now 15 months since the SARS-CoV-2 virus reared its ugly head in Wuhan and badly disrupted lives across the globe. Initially, it was thought to be like the flu or pneumonia, and some figured it was likely to die out in the summer. But as we now know, the new bug was to remain bulletproof until a slew of vaccines came along.

A common complaint among friends has been having to deal with “the rules”, which often have defied logic. We can go to the gym, but we can’t exercise on the beach; we can overindulge in a busy restaurant (four-at-a-time, mind you) but have to repent online as no churches are open. As an alternative, you can have your nails done and confess your sins to the beautician. The most difficult thing to deal with, however, has been the removal of our freedom to travel, with progressive tightening of quarantine rules to the point where returning to Hong Kong from even Covid-free countries is almost impossible to stomach.

Now, after a year of global lockdowns, new variants of the virus, and waves of infection, the light gleaming at the end of the tunnel has taken the shape of seven vaccines. Two of them were already available in Hong Kong until distribution of BioNTech’s Comirnaty was suspended because of some wonky lids, and a third is on the way. So we should all be lining up, have a jab and get back to normal, right?

There has been an understandable level of reluctance to be early adopters of the vaccines that are available, and there is clearly a trust issue with some of them. Working out which one to get is also tricky: we’ve got the groundbreaking vaccine from BioNTech, the single-shot one from Johnson & Johnson if it becomes available, or we can wait for AstraZeneca to arrive in Hong Kong or take the plunge with Sinovac.