Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the government is considering to further ease social distancing measures and lift travel restrictions when the city’s vaccination rate reaches a certain percentage.
In a report on anti-epidemic efforts, Lam said about 430,000 residents had taken at least their first shots of vaccine as of Friday, which accounted for 6.6 percent of eligible recipients aged above 16 since the mass vaccination drive kicked off last month.
She added 3.3million doses of vaccines had arrived in Hong Kong, and an expert panel has been closely monitoring health conditions of recipients.
“According to the experts’ assessment, there is no direct causal association between the serious adverse events following vaccination and the administration of vaccine so far,” said Lam, who urged the public not to worry about safety of the vaccination.
However, Lam said the current injection rate is still low. To provide incentives, the government is studying whether it is possible to relax social gathering bans if a certain number of people had taken the shots. Health authorities are also planning to discuss with other regions on mutually providing travel convenience to vaccinated tourists.
On the suspension of the BioNTech vaccines due to packaging defects, Lam said the defects only involved a small quantify of the jabs and it would not affect vaccine safety.
“We suspended the Comirnaty vaccination for members of the public on the request of the manufacturer.”
She added 3.3million doses of vaccines had arrived in Hong Kong, and an expert panel has been closely monitoring health conditions of recipients.
“According to the experts’ assessment, there is no direct causal association between the serious adverse events following vaccination and the administration of vaccine so far,” said Lam, who urged the public not to worry about safety of the vaccination.
However, Lam said the current injection rate is still low. To provide incentives, the government is studying whether it is possible to relax social gathering bans if a certain number of people had taken the shots. Health authorities are also planning to discuss with other regions on mutually providing travel convenience to vaccinated tourists.
On the suspension of the BioNTech vaccines due to packaging defects, Lam said the defects only involved a small quantify of the jabs and it would not affect vaccine safety.
“We suspended the Comirnaty vaccination for members of the public on the request of the manufacturer.”