Jab bookings jump after announcement of lucky draw

The Health Secretary, Sophia Chan, said on Saturday that she was happy to see more businesses offering incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

This comes as two property developers announced they were putting up a flat worth nearly HK$11 million as the top prize in a lucky draw for vaccinated people.

On Friday, the number of people who took the vaccines jumped to 35,800, compared to 26,000 on the previous day, while 25,600 made bookings for their jabs, up from 20,200 compared to Thursday.

The health chief said some people are hesitant about getting inoculated. She said incentives like the lucky draw could motivate them:

“There are people in the process of wait and see. They’re probably contemplating whether they are going to get vaccinated or not and haven’t taken any action,” she said.

“In this regard, any intervention that is able to motivate people… the government actually welcomes.”

The Secretary for the Civil Service, Patrick Nip, who’s in charge of the vaccination programme, said Hong Kong is close to achieving zero infection.

He appealed to residents to get vaccinated in the coming three months.

He reminded people that the vaccination centres will operate until September, meaning they should take their first jabs by August.

More than 2.2 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Hong Kong so far.