Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam gets city’s first Covid-19 jab, insists only steady fall in cases will lead to further relaxation of social distancing
- Hong Kong leader warns that she does not ‘envisage that within a very short span of time, we will relax social distancing on the basis of vaccination’
- Mass immunisation drive for the city starts later this week, with bookings opening on Tuesday
Hailing the vaccination campaign as a “ray of light” in Hong Kong’s year-long pandemic fight, the city’s chief executive said she was “very happy, very excited” to take the jab and urged the public to also get inoculated.
“The vaccination offers an opportunity and a way out of the current pandemic as soon as possible,” she said.
Health authorities confirmed 16 new infections on Monday, the day before bookings open for the mass immunisation programme which starts later this week.
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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam receives city’s first Covid-19 vaccine
But just how much city life could be restored to normality was soon called into question.
“I do not envisage that within a very short span of time, we will relax social distancing on the basis of vaccination, because it would take a pretty lengthy time before vaccination would have its desired effects to protect individuals from being infected, in creating a certain degree of herd immunity in society,” Lam said, when pressed on the issue.
