Around 30,000 Make Appointments For Jab

The Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Alfred Sit, said on Tuesday that around 30,000 people had made appointments for the Sinovac vaccination through the government's inoculation website as at 8 am.

He told an RTHK radio programme that the enthusiastic response overloaded the website for a short while after bookings opened at midnight, but had since been running smoothly.

A total of 2.4 million people - including those over 60, healthcare workers and essential staff, cross boundary workers and residents of care homes - have been given priority to be vaccinated against Covid-19 starting on Friday.

Sit also said there had been 2.8 million downloads of the government's LeaveHomeSafe app.

He stressed that 97 percent of the downloads were made in the territory, after some netizens pointed out that the app topped download lists in countries like Fiji and Niger.

"Hong Kong is a metropolis, and many people may study or work overseas... so if they use their phones there to [download] the LeaveHomeSafe app, it may be recorded as a download made abroad," he said.