A Few Days To 90 Percent One Jab Milestone, Says Nip

The official leading Hong Kong's vaccination drive, Patrick Nip, says he expects it to be a matter of a few days before the SAR records 90 percent of its population as having had their first Covid jab.

The Civil Service Bureau secretary said reaching that milestone hadn't been easy, noting that the 80-percent mark was only hit a couple of weeks ago.

Writing on social media, Nip said he believed people now understood that it was both important and safe to get vaccinated.

"The current epidemic situation is severe, and we're doing our best, racing against time to vaccinate the public," he wrote.

And he again urged the unvaccinated to get inoculated.

He said the government was preparing more new vaccination centres, as it further tried to boost daily capacity to 100,000 doses by early March.

He added that authorities were aiming to have 90 percent of elderly people, as well as children aged three and 11, inoculated by mid- April.