Govt to jab elderly, disabled at their homes

The minister in charge of the government’s vaccination drive, Patrick Nip, said on Saturday that the authorities are going to inoculate disabled or elderly people at their homes.

Speaking after attending a radio programme, he said he hoped the outreach programme would make it more convenient for those who are home-bound – including people aged 70 or above or with disabilities – to get jabbed.

Nip said the government is now setting up an online platform for people to sign up for the outreach service.

He said the platform would open next week on a trial basis for some local organisations which have been in touch with the elderly or disabled people, and the system will be launched officially later.

Nip said they are also lining up with medical organisations to send outreach teams to different districts when the scheme kick-starts.

“We hope that by so doing we can help increase the vaccination rate for those aged 70 and above, because that’s our current priority,” he said.

Meanwhile, a government vaccine adviser said the rather low vaccination take-up of the elderly is the reason the overall Covid death rate hasn’t been going down quickly enough in the past few weeks.

Wallace Lau, who’s set to become the interim Dean of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong in August, noted that the deaths were down by a third – from around 300 to 200 per day – while infections have fallen by two-thirds to around 10,000 cases per day.

He added that the number of deaths among the over-80s is higher than pre-Covid times this year, showing that the virus is a risk to their lives.

Lau called on the elderly to get their jab soon if they haven’t.