Citizens should stop arguing to what extent the city’s population has to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, government advisor Yuen Kwok-yung said.
Instead, the city should focus on getting as many people, especially elderly citizens, to receive the jabs as early as possible.
“Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States have a vaccination rate of over 70 percent, of which a significant number are elderly citizens. Even though they still have a large number of daily cases, the death rate is not high,” the top microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong said.
“If Hong Kong achieves a vaccination rate of 90% but only a small minority of elderly citizens are vaccinated, there would be an unfavourable result as the 10% of unvaccinated individuals might infect the elderly with the disease.”
On the recently-tightened border restrictions, Yuen stated that available data on the highly contagious Delta Covid-19 variant showed previous quarantine arrangements were too loose and longer quarantine period will allow prompt detection of infected arrivals.
“Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States have a vaccination rate of over 70 percent, of which a significant number are elderly citizens. Even though they still have a large number of daily cases, the death rate is not high,” the top microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong said.
“If Hong Kong achieves a vaccination rate of 90% but only a small minority of elderly citizens are vaccinated, there would be an unfavourable result as the 10% of unvaccinated individuals might infect the elderly with the disease.”
On the recently-tightened border restrictions, Yuen stated that available data on the highly contagious Delta Covid-19 variant showed previous quarantine arrangements were too loose and longer quarantine period will allow prompt detection of infected arrivals.