Vaccination rate is encouraging, says health minister

Secretary for Health Sophia Chan said she was hopeful Hong Kong’s Covid vaccination rate could rise to 50 percent, noting that daily inoculation figures recently reached new highs.

“The figures have been encouraging,” Chan said during an RTHK programme on Saturday.

“We have administered more than 3.4 million doses after 120 days [since the start of the vaccination drive], and more than two million people have taken their first jab, which is about 30 percent of the population,” she said, adding that daily vaccination figures have been going up.

“If we can keep this up, there’s a chance for us to see a vaccination rate of over 50 percent in August or September,” she said.

The health secretary pointed out such a vaccination rate will give more room for further relaxation of social distancing measures, but stressed that the city needs to have 70 percent of its population inoculated to achieve herd immunity.

Chan described Hong Kong’s epidemic situation as improving, despite the recent discovery of a local untraceable case of the more contagious Delta variant.

She said sporadic cases are inevitable because of the spread of mutated strains outside Hong Kong, adding that the more than 30,000 people who might have come into contact with the 27-year-old patient, including people working in the airport and living in the same building as him, have so far tested negative for the coronavirus.