Experts recommend phased approach for Covid vaccines

2021-01-21 HKT 20:10″ title=”Experts say residents and staff of care homes should get inoculated against Covid-19 first, followed by the elderly and medical workers, then the chronically ill. File photo: Reuters”>

Experts say residents and staff of care homes should get inoculated against Covid-19 first, followed by the elderly and medical workers, then the chronically ill. File photo: Reuters

Experts advising the government on its Covid vaccination programme are recommending a phased approach, with residents and staff at care homes to get inoculated first, followed by healthcare workers and the elderly, before the programme is expanded to younger people with chronic medical problems.

While Hong Kong has secured more than 22.5 million doses of three different vaccines, most won’t arrive for months.

The first vaccines from Sinovac are due to arrive by the end of January, but the mainland firm hasn’t provided enough data to the authorities and the product hasn’t been cleared for use, resulting in uncertainty over when the free universal vaccination programme will begin.

However, experts from two scientific committees under the Centre for Health Protection (CHP), along with a separate panel advising the government on its coronavirus response, concluded that there will not be enough vaccines to protect the entire community in the intial stage of the inoculation programme.

As such, they think the best approach is to protect the most vulnerable first.

In a report published on Thursday, the experts said residents of elderly homes are the most at risk of suffering severe illness or even death from Covid-19. Homes for the disabled, and other institutional settings such as prisons, are also considered to be at the highest risk of infection, so residents and staff of these facilities will get first priority for the jabs.

And because the risk of death from Covid-19 rises exponentially with age, anyone aged 60 or above will get the jabs second, alongside healthcare workers, and people who provide services deemed essential to the community.

Third on the priority list are chronically ill people between 16 and 59 years old.

The experts also stressed that there’s a need to maintain social distancing measures, and for the public to keep wearing masks and maintain good hand hygiene to reduce the risk of transmission.

They say the recommendations may be updated once more data from vaccine trials are available.

Speaking in Legco, health secretary Sophia Chan said the government will work to start the universal vaccination programme as soon as possible, and authorities believe it can be launched after the lunar new year holidays.