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Coronavirus pandemic
OpinionLetters

Letters | To tackle coronavirus vaccine hesitancy in Hong Kong, lift the mask mandate

  • Clear benefits of getting the Covid-19 vaccine mean there is no excuse for avoiding it
  • Those who have been vaccinated should not have to be inconvenienced just because vaccine-hesitant Hongkongers show no consideration for others

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People line up outside a community vaccination centre to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Hong Kong on May 12. Only about 10 per cent of the Hong Kong population have been fully vaccinated. Photo: EPA-EFE
Letters

Covid-19 vaccinations in Hong Kong are free, convenient, easy to book in an efficiently run system, and extremely effective. So why don’t people get vaccinated?

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There are a variety of reasons. Concerns over vaccine safety and side effects are the fault of governments around the world pausing vaccinations for infinitesimal side-effect risks on the principle of an “abundance of caution”, rather than taking a “balance of risk” approach, while the media carried scare reports of deaths after vaccination, which exaggerated their occurrence. It didn’t help that French President Emmanuel Macron early on threw shade at the AstraZeneca vaccine, irresponsibly and incorrectly. All this led to understandable hesitancy.
Yet the benefits of the Covid-19 vaccines are overwhelmingly positive, as the experience of highly vaccinated countries is showing. Everyone ought to be lining up to get their jabs.

Our family is fully vaccinated, and we confirm the experience of writers to these pages that the process is simple, friendly and efficient. There is really no excuse for not getting the jabs, but many remain “hesitant”.

Illustration: SCMP
Illustration: SCMP
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One way to improve uptake is to make life more convenient for those of us who are vaccinated (and to stare down those who cry “discrimination” at any attempt to encourage uptake). For example, the government could do away with the mask mandate entirely. Those of us who are vaccinated don’t have to worry – the risk is not zero, but is extremely small.

Those who are unvaccinated have a simple choice: get vaccinated! It’s free, easy and effective. Or take the risk. Wear a mask if you wish. But do not expect those of us who are vaccinated to keep wearing masks because you refuse a simple and effective vaccination. Why should we who have done the right thing have to keep considering those who refuse to do the same? This move could boost our vaccination rate.

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