U-turn on post-vaccination death announcements

A top government adviser on Covid vaccines said on Sunday they’re going to do a U-turn about making public the deaths of those who have recently had a jab.

The government’s expert committee looking into adverse clinical events following inoculation decided not to make the announcements in early June.

But its co-convenor, Ivan Hung, explained that the decision then was because there had not been any vaccine-related death cases in the first three months of Hong Kong’s inoculation drive.

Now, he said they’ve realised people are very concerned about relevant transparency, and he hopes the “minor changes” will alleviate such concerns.

“For example, there could be an announcement on the statistics every week, saying how many cases had taken place in the past fortnight, how are they related [to vaccines]. This is more transparent,” Hung said while attending a TV programme.

The professor said they’ll discuss next week whether to give the written reports – but there probably won’t be an announcement for each and every case.