Jabs campaign hit by old problem

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Only 155 seniors among 5,850 reached by authorities were willing to take Covid-19 jabs, says the Secretary for the Civil Service, Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan.

Most elderly citizens have refused to get the shots and officers have found it difficult to convince them, she said.

In a Facebook post yesterday, Yeung said authorities and the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association approached 5,850 unvaccinated elderly in the past month but only 155 of them registered for the jab and 78 signed up for medical consultation.

"So far, the success rate is only 2.65 percent," Yeung said. "I never underestimate the difficulty of boosting the vaccination rate among the elderly because it is not easy to persuade them. It seems that many elderly are still insisting on their own ideas but we will continue to work on them."

The home safety association is providing health vaccine information to the elderly in hopes of easing their concerns about Covid jabs, Yeung said.

In one case, a woman in her 70s was having difficulty in taking her mother, who is in her 90s, to get the jab. The association then sent staff to take the mother to get vaccinated, Yeung said.

She urged elderly citizens to complete vaccination before winter so that they can be protected.

As of Saturday, 83 percent of elderly aged 70 to 79 and 71 percent of those aged 80 or above have received one dose of the vaccine while the SAR's overall vaccination rate has exceeded 94 percent for one dose.

The second jab coverage among the two age groups are 82 percent and 68 percent.

Hong Kong yesterday recorded 3,569 cases - 3,354 local and 215 imported. Three elderly care homes - Pine Care (Lee Foo) Elderly Centre, Olive Nursing Home Cum Day Care Unit For the Elderly and Tung Chung Silverjoy - reported three cases and eight residents have been listed as close contacts.

Sing Wing Home for the disabled reported one infection and another resident was classified as a close contact.

Authorities said the proportion of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants has reached 89.3 percent over the past week while the BA.2.12.1 strain accounted for 3.5 percent.

Six people, aged 60 to 99, have died, taking the death toll in the fifth wave to 9,960.

The Hospital Authority said 1,673 Covid patients were in hospitals yesterday, including 187 new admissions.

A total of 180 patients recovered yesterday and 145 were discharged.
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