Hong Kong fourth wave: more than half of residents do not intend to take Covid-19 vaccine jabs, survey finds

Poll by University of Hong Kong reveals less than three in 10 residents prepared to take vaccine supplied by mainland Chinese company Sinovac

Health expert says government, scientific community and the World Health Organization need to provide ‘solid scientific evidence’ to ease residents’ concerns

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Among the three brands of vaccines already procured by the Hong Kong, the jabs by Pfizer-BioNTech enjoyed the highest level of acceptability at 55.9 per cent among respondents. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:10pm, 28 Jan 2021Updated: 11:58pm, 28 Jan 2021

In a fresh blow to the government’s plan to vaccinate every Hong Kong resident, a survey has found that more than half do not intend to take the Covid-19 shot, a rise of 17 percentage points over the past two months.

The citywide poll by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) also revealed that fewer than three in 10 residents were prepared to take the vaccine supplied by mainland Chinese company Sinovac Biotech amid concerns over its low efficacy.

The findings came as Hong Kong reported 39 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, extending a downward trend in daily caseloads for a fifth day. All but one of the cases were imported, with 20 of them untraceable.

The city’s tally stands at 10,321, with 176 related deaths after two chronically ill men, aged 47 and 66, succumbed to the disease. Three arrivals were found to be carrying a mutated, fast-spreading strain of the virus, taking the total of such cases to 20.

Pedestrians and schoolchildren wear protective masks in downtown Hong Kong. Photo: Bloomberg

Professor Gabriel Leung, dean of HKU’s faculty of medicine who was involved in the research, said the government, scientific community and the World Health Organization (WHO) needed to provide “solid scientific evidence” to ease residents’ concerns.