HK gets tough on 4 key sectors over vaccinations

Hong Kong civil servants, teachers and health-care workers must get vaccinated against the coronavirus or pay for regular testing, the city's leader announced on Monday, as her administration adopted a push into mandatory inoculations.

Authorities were unsatisfied with a slow initial take-up of vaccines, although the numbers have improved in recent months after various businesses announced a range of perks for those who take vaccines, including a lottery prize of an apartment worth about US$1 million. After six months, 36 percent of the city's 7.5 million residents are fully vaccinated with two jabs while 48 percent have received one dose.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Monday a new push to raise the city's vaccination rate by making jabs compulsory for four sectors: civil servants, health-care workers, care home staff and school teachers.

Vaccination rates vary between those sectors – from 70 percent among civil servants to just 47 percent among teachers. "There is much room for improvement," Lam said.

Those who refuse vaccinations will have to be tested twice a week and pay for the cost out of their own pockets unless they have a valid medical reason not to be inoculated.

"If it's purely a personal option not to get vaccinated and help society achieve herd immunity, that's not something a responsible government should allow or tolerate," Lam said.

Infections have remained low as Hong Kong has been all but closed to non-residents for most of the last 18 months and all arrivals must undergo lengthy quarantine in designated hotels.

But the zero COVID-19 strategy has imposed tough economic costs on the city, once a major international transport hub, and added to a sense of complacency among the public.

Lam said that vaccinated people arriving in Hong Kong from countries deemed as medium-risk who present a negative COVID-19 test and positive antibody test could spend seven days instead of 14 days in mandatory hotel quarantine.