Covid vaccination can start next month: Patrick Nip

The government minister in charge of the territory’s Covid-19 vaccination programme on Sunday said if everything goes smoothly, people can start getting the jabs at the beginning of March.

Civil service secretary Patrick Nip told a TV programme that the first batch of one million doses from the German firm BioNtech should arrive at the end of this month.

He said there will be at least one Community Vaccination Centre in each of the 18 districts, while those with a bigger population may get more than one.

The secretary pointed out that authorities had been conducting rehearsals on vaccine storage and transportation, as well as the actual vaccination process to ensure everything will go safely and orderly when the programme kicks off.

“Booking arrangements will be announced soon,” Nip added.

Government-appointed experts, meanwhile, are still in the process of vetting the jabs from mainland firm Sinovac, after health officials dropped a requirement for it to publish data from late-stage clinical trials in a medical journal.