Hong Kong faces Covid and flu winter double whammy, health chief warns, even as latest wave subsides and hospitals are set to restore some interrupted services
- Lo Chung-mau and officials urge residents to get vaccinated against influenza ahead of seasonal surge, assuring public the shots can be combined with doses for Covid
- City records 5,990 new coronavirus infections, including 163 imported ones, as well as 17 more related fatalities
Hong Kong is facing a double whammy of Covid-19 and seasonal flu in a coming winter surge, the city’s health minister has warned, even as the current coronavirus wave subsides and public hospitals are set to restore 20 per cent of interrupted services.
In a press briefing after receiving their fourth Covid-19 vaccine shot and a flu jab at the government’s general outpatient clinic in Sai Wan Ho on Thursday, Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau and top officials under him revealed the influenza vaccination drive would start on October 6, with a million doses already procured.
“Both jabs can be taken at the same time … It’s very convenient and we felt very good after resting for 15 minutes,” Lo said, before delivering his stark message.
“A lot of statistics have shown that co-infection of Covid-19 and flu will lead to a very high risk of severe illness and death.”
Lo said mask-wearing and social-distancing practices in the past two years of the pandemic had kept flu rates low, adding: “But because of that, residents’ immunity to flu has fallen a lot … I urge all residents to get vaccinated before the winter surge.”
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His warnings came as health officials recorded 5,990 new coronavirus infections, including 163 imported ones, as well as 17 more related fatalities. The city’s tally now stands at 1,731,026 cases, with 9,934 deaths.
Director of Health Ronald Lam Man-kin said eight groups of residents were deemed at high risk of severe flu conditions and prioritised for inoculation, including those aged 50 and above, children from six months to 12 years, care home and health workers, pregnant women and patients with chronic illnesses.
Vaccination centres and outpatient clinics will provide one-stop inoculation with both the Covid-19 and flu jabs. Lo noted that vaccination coverage was key to reopening the city to the world.
Lam added that a free outreach service to 460 primary schools and 720 kindergartens and childcare centres that have signed up for the drive would start on September 29.
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Lo also confirmed an earlier Post report that the government had received an application to authorise the children’s version of the German-made BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, but he urged parents not to wait for the dose or second-generation Omicron-targeting shots that were being manufactured. The Chinese-produced Sinovac shot is already available for the city’s youngest residents.
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“For our public healthcare system and economy to return to normal, vaccination is an indispensable part of that,” he said.
The minister said that since July, 30 to 40 per cent of service adjustments in public hospitals were made to divert resources to Covid-19 patients, adding “our aim is to resume at least 80 per cent of normal services as soon as possible”.
Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling said the body would return “in days” to a phase two emergency response footing which would involve 2,000 beds being reserved for Covid-19 patients, down from 5,000 currently in phase three.
Dr Sara Ho, a chief manager of the authority, later told an afternoon press briefing that as of Thursday, 382 Covid-19 inpatients were occupying isolated beds, 150 were in second-tier beds, 439 in North Lantau Hospital and 175 in AsiaWorld-Expo treatment centre.
At a separate press briefing, Fan revealed the authority would roll out three more exchange programmes with healthcare professionals in the Greater Bay Area, with the aim of creating a “talent bank” in the long run that fostered knowledge-sharing.
Reporting on the first scheme announced in June, Fan said officials had already recruited eight doctors in pulmonology and internal medicine disciplines and were in the process of registering them with the Medical Council to practise for one year in the city on a limited basis.
A new second scheme will see three “experienced and reputable” Chinese medicine practitioners loaned to the city for 10 months in October, to help guide a “significant expansion” in joint treatment with Chinese and Western medicine, beyond the three current areas in cancer alleviation, pain relief and stroke.
A third and fourth scheme will involve a first batch of 70 nurses and five to six radiographers seconded to the city, with the nurse quota expected to rise to 300 in two years.
Fan said public hospitals were still losing doctors and nurses at annual attrition rates of 8.3 and 10.1 per cent respectively.
“We have high hopes about this initiative, which is about using opportunities in the Greater Bay Area well to provide better services to our patients and enhance the Authority’s sustainability,” he said.
Separately, researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s medical faculty found that the Chinese herb Spatholobus suberectus Dunn could provide extracts for a nasal drug that might help inhibit the growth of the coronavirus, but so far it has only been tested on mice.
