BioNTech Suspension Was A Bit Chaotic, Govt Admits

The official spearheading Hong Kong's Covid-19 vaccination programme, Patrick Nip, conceded on Thursday that the government's abrupt suspension of the use of BioNTech jabs created some "chaos" at vaccination centres.

Some of those with bookings on Wednesday morning had to be turned away. Some facilities reportedly stopped giving out the vaccine, resumed injections for a while, and then stopped again.

“I believe it might have been caused by the messages we delivered to the centres…at that time, we didn’t have a full picture, so that might have given rise to some problems,” Nip explained during a radio phone interview.

“There were some chaotic moments when we were handling the matter within a short period of time,” the civil service secretary added.

The suspension came into effect at around 10am, even though the government had already been advised by the vaccine manufacturer to take such action by the time centres opened at 8am.

“We spent some time to understand the situation, we needed to know about the seriousness of the matter, and whether there were any safety or quality issues in the two batches,” Nip said.

There are no safety or quality issues regarding the doses, the government says, with the suspension ordered due to "packaging defects".

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Sophia Chan told an RTHK programme that more than 1,000 people received the BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday, before the suspension.

“The injections they received have no safety issues,” she reiterated.

“But in terms of our overall communication with the public, of course we’ll try our best to improve on it in case of similar incidents in the future.”