Government In New Drive To Vaccinate The Elderly

The Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip said on Saturday that the government would pull out all the stops over the next two months to persuade the elderly to get vaccinated against Covid.

Nip, who's in charge of the city's vaccination programme, said fewer than a third of people aged over 70 had been inoculated.

He said authorities would set up more pop-up vaccination sites at shopping malls, housing estates, and public hospitals.

“We would try every possible channel to facilitate the elderly to get the jabs, including arranging outreach services at shopping malls, housing estates or arranging talks, medical consultations and vaccination services on site in different districts,” he said.

He added that the government was aiming for more people to get walk-in jabs at community vaccination centres.

Meanwhile, an infectious diseases expert said Hong Kong should adopt a mainland-style health code system to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks.

Professor David Hui - one of the experts advising the government on its coronavirus strategy - said a colour-coded mobile app, similar to the one used across the border, would speed up contact tracing

“This is a measure not only implemented on the mainland, it’s also implemented in Singapore," he said.

"I think it’s a good measure when you’re facing a pandemic, when you have travellers coming from overseas... if there’s a health code that will enable the health authorities to do contact tracing, that will facilitate the control of any outbreak."