Vaccination rate drops to worrying level: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Wednesday that the number of people taking the coronavirus jabs recently has dropped to a “worrying” level, as she again urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible if they want to have quarantine-free travel to the mainland.

Speaking at a question and answer session at Legco, the CE said she has proposed to the central government to let experts from both sides discuss what more the SAR can do to ensure the safe reopening of the border.

“We’ve controlled our pandemic situation very well and have achieved zero infections. We have strict quarantine measures to prevent imported cases when the global outbreak is still serious,” she said.

“What more can Hong Kong do in terms of anti-epidemic work to facilitate our discussion with mainland authorities about reopening the border? I’ve proposed to the central government to let our experts get in touch and discuss the issue,” she said.

Lam praised Hong Kong people for their compliance with coronavirus rules such as wearing face masks, but she said more people needed to be inoculated.

“One thing that Hong Kong people can do to facilitate the reopening of the border is to get vaccinated. I said previously that if we want to achieve a 70 percent vaccination rate by the end of this month, more than 22,000 people need to take the first dose of the vaccine every day,” she said.

“But that figure has dropped to some 10,000 recently. We will continue to encourage citizens to receive the jabs and use other means to boost the vaccination rate.”