CE Asks Beijing For Mainland-made Vaccine

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that she has asked Beijing to provide Hong Kong with mainland-made Covid-19 jabs, after "hiccups" or delays in the delivery of the vaccines the government has ordered.

Speaking to reporters ahead of her weekly Executive Council meeting, Lam said the SAR has a "desperate need" for coronavirus vaccines, especially for high-risk groups and cross-border workers.

“We have 10,000 truck drivers crossing the border every day, and they have to take tests every day. Now that we have a vaccine, there was a proposal put to us that they should be vaccinated as early as possible – together with the mainland truck drivers – so that there could be greater assurance and safety," Lam said.

"So with those considerations in mind, I sort of triggered what I’ve been given to understand in Beijing last November that if there is a need in Hong Kong, then the chief executive could always approach the central people’s government for help in trying to secure a certain proportion of mainland-developed, or mainland-produced vaccines to come to Hong Kong, and that’s exactly what I have done.”

Asked how Beijing responded to her request, Lam said only that the central government has been “very supportive” in helping Hong Kong authorities tackle the pandemic, for example providing face masks, and helping with the community testing programme last September.

"I hope and I would continue to appeal to the central government to give us support on the issue of vaccine supply," she said

On Monday, the SAR government said it had accepted a recommendation from its expert panel on vaccines to approve a jab made by Germany's BioNTech and distributed by the mainland's Fosun Pharma.

It is the first vaccine approved for use in the SAR and a million doses are expected to arrive in the second half of next month.

The two other vaccines the government has procured but is yet to receive are the one made by Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and another from mainland firm Sinovac.

It wasn't clear whether the jabs Lam would like to see Beijing send to the SAR are the Sinovac ones already ordered, or those made by another mainland company, Sinopharm.

Sinopharm has said its vaccine is more than 70 percent effective, but it hasn't published any data in medical journals.

Researchers in Brazil recently said that they found the Sinovac jabs to be around 50 percent effective – far lower than the reported efficacy rates for the BioNTech and AstraZeneca jabs.