We Can't Let Vaccinations Be Politicised: Carrie Lam

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Thursday said the government is handling the city's coronavirus vaccination programme carefully, to avoid the issue being politicised.

She was responding to a question in the Legislative Council over the expected use of mainland-made vaccines in the SAR.

Independent lawmaker Paul Tse accused the government of being too "conservative", saying that the law should be amended to allow the jabs produced by Sinopharm to be administered in Hong Kong even though the drug maker has not released the full data from its trials.

Tse pointed out that the vaccines are already widely used on the mainland, and questioned why they could not be given to the people of Hong Kong.

"We must observe 'One Country, Two Systems' but in terms of fighting the epidemic, Hong Kong should not be that conservative. We should speed up our work," he said.

But Lam warned that the issue could be politicised.

"Hong Kong is a diversified society. In recent years, we saw views of different people and many acts have been made political. In terms of vaccination, they should be administered as far as possible but if we are not careful, this issue could be manipulated by certain people and at the end, the people of Hong Kong would suffer," she said.

"This is not about being conservative or not. This is the reality that we're facing."

The CE previously said that any coronavirus vaccines must be vetted by medical experts before they are used in Hong Kong.