Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced Wednesday evening that the SAR government has procured enough COVID-19 vaccine doses for every Hong Kong resident to be administered at least twice, if necessary. She said an advisory committee of more than a dozen medical experts has been formed to offer professional guidance over technicalities of the citywide inoculation program, which will be accompanied by a monitoring mechanism to ensure no undesirable results from the vaccination will be left unattended. This is reassuring news, to say the least, and just in time to dispel those politically-motivated rumors and unfounded accusations against the SAR government as well as central authorities regarding COVID-19 vaccines.
The government will soon release all the details the public needs to know about the upcoming COVID-19 inoculation program, which will offer three types of vaccines for people working in different environments, such as medical professionals working in hospitals and those on essential jobs that involve frequent contact with high-risk individuals or objects. To ensure every resident is adequately protected, the SAR government has strategically sourced 22.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine from three suppliers, including 7.5 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from the Chinese mainland company Sinovac, 7.5 million doses of the vaccine developed by the German firm BioNTech, and another 7.5 million doses of the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The government’s massive vaccine program aims to ensure all local residents will be vaccinated, hopefully early next year. The program is the long-awaited measure expected to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases, the premise for social and economic recovery. It is hopeful that adequate coverage of the vaccines will generate herd immunity in the coming years.
Besides flattening the curve of coronavirus cases, Hong Kong must be well prepared to outwit another destructive mentality. Though the government is fully prepared to launch a fair and transparent vaccine sourcing and distribution program, some malicious naysayers nevertheless manage to politicize the matter and sabotage the government’s efforts to meet the “zero infection” target. The SAR government and expert team have wasted a substantial amount of time and energy to clarify the issue to reassure the public. It is time for members of the public to cooperate with the government to bring the city out of the double whammy of pandemic and trust crisis.
To protect a person in a pandemic, one needs a vaccine; to protect society in an information age, fighting against misinformation is necessary. As the news of COVID-19 vaccinations has dominated the headlines, residents in Hong Kong should wise up to the malicious misinformation churned out by ill-intended frauds who harbor “ulterior motives” to politicize the issue of public health. Although no right-thinking people entertain the rumormongers’ conspiracy theories, the resentment sentiment poisons the public domain. The light can be seen at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel might be longer than expected.
