'Covid Experts To Unite Views To Avoid Confusion'

Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau on Thursday said the government and its expert advisers will disseminate information about Covid-19 in a consolidated manner in future to prevent any confusion about Hong Kong's coronavirus strategy.

He was responding to a question from New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip at a Legco panel meeting, on a recent suggestion from four prominent experts for Hong Kong to move towards ‘hybrid immunity’, where vaccination combines with natural infection to boost overall immunity.

The experts – including two who sit on the government’s Covid advisory panel – also said social distancing measures should be relaxed gradually to allow the overall immunity of the community to be boosted by natural infection.

In response, the health chief said before appointing the experts, the government had told them that Hong Kong should not solely follow theories and strategies used in other places when tackling the pandemic, but also consider its own unique situation, such as its population, demographics, vaccination rate and the capacity of its health system.

Lo added that a meeting with the expert panel will be held imminently, and they will be looking to give a clear, united position afterwards to avoid any confusion.

“Our focus should be on a more systematic approach on informing the public, following comprehensive internal discussions with the expert committee,” he said.

“Our committee will hold its first meeting very soon, and we will then present a unified position to hopefully prevent the public from getting mixed messages from different sources.”