Get Boosters Before Border Reopens, Urges Expert

A medical expert advising the government on the city’s coronavirus vaccination programme on Tuesday urged people who are eligible for a booster to get the jab, warning that Hong Kong might see another wave of infections after the resumption of quarantine-free travel across the border.

With officials on either side of the border discussing what needs to be done to allow quarantine-free travel to the mainland, now is the time to get your booster if you can, said Professor Lau Yu-lung, chairman of the Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases.

“The whole world would need the third dose, even for BioNTech, in order to ride over the next wave. For Hong Kong, the next wave obviously will be a fifth wave and we do not know when it will come,” he said.

“But my guess is once we open the border and with more people movement across the border, the fifth wave will come. Before that, we need to prepare ourselves.”

Currently, people over 60, patients considered clinically vulnerable from Covid, workers in high-risk jobs, and anyone who received Sinovac jabs more than six months ago can get a third dose of vaccine.

Lau said other people who have been vaccinated with BioNTech should be offered a booster early next year, and he also hopes children as young as three will be allowed to get the Sinovac jab in the coming months.

The government has said it is first making Sinovac shots available for the over-12s before offering them to younger children. The BioNTech jab is available for people aged 12 and above.