'The Elderly Will Need To Get Jabbed Eventually'

The convenor of the Executive Council on Sunday said he believes any impact of a vaccine passport would be temporary, and that elderly people will need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 eventually.

Bernard Chan was speaking a day after the civil service chief confirmed the government is mulling a plan to ban people from entering certain premises if they are not inoculated.

Chan said Hong Kong cannot allow the vaccination rate among elderly people to remain at the low rate of around 20 percent. Currently, just under 18 percent of people aged over 80 have received one jab.

He warned that if this inoculation rate did not improve, the city would never be able to open its borders to the world.

"If in the future, we have more premises that adopt 'vaccine bubbles' that require people to get jabbed to enter, I believe at the end of the day elderly people will get the shots," he said.

"They simply lack the motivation now. If we wait for them they may never get vaccinated. If they don't, Hong Kong's 7.4 million people will be isolated."

The Exco convenor said he believed if the government was to introduce a vaccine passport, it would be a gradual rollout with the aim of boosting the vaccination rate.