As the Chief Executive Carrie Lam previously announced that the "vaccine bubble" would be expanded on February 24 this year, and required citizens to be vaccinated before entering various dining establishments, cultural and recreational facilities and even schools, a large number of unvaccinated people have been stimulated to visit recently. For example, in the first nine days of this month, about 15,000 people were given the first injection every day, which was nearly four times the average of less than 4,000 people per day in December last year.
Many community vaccination centers have experienced long queues, and the online system also shows that almost all the places in the next few weeks will be occupied, which seems to reflect that the current supply of injection places cannot meet all the needs of the public.
Last Friday (January 7), the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Patrick Nip, said that various measures will be introduced to respond to the public's demand for vaccination, including adding a mobile vaccination station, increasing the manpower of community vaccination centres and public hospital vaccination stations, and extending vaccination appointments The days go to the next four weeks.
At the same time, he also mentioned that the authorities will open the Education Bureau Kowloon Tong Education Service Center and Kowloon Bay Sports Centre two community vaccination centers next Friday (January 21). The number of vaccinations at these two places.
Reduce the inconvenience of vaccination centers
In addition to the above-mentioned vaccination sites, the current channels for public vaccination include general outpatient clinics under the Hospital Authority, clinics under the Department of Health, designated private clinics or private healthcare institutions, and outreach vaccination service teams.
However, each of these alternatives has different limitations. For example, clinics under the Hospital Authority and the Department of Health only provide Sinovac vaccines, and only 26 locations under the eight health care institutions participating in the pilot program can provide rehab vaccines at private vaccination sites. Bitai vaccine, as for the outreach vaccination services, the target is basically limited to institutions, enterprises, and cannot benefit individuals. Therefore, the general public mainly prefers community vaccination centers.
In view of the fact that in the past few months before the variant disease struck, the epidemic situation in Hong Kong tended to ease, and the number of injections was low, so the authorities have recently closed various vaccination centers one after another.
First, at the end of September, the three vaccination centers of Queen Elizabeth Stadium, Hong Kong International Airport and Ap Lei Chau Stadium were closed on the grounds of "low overall utilization rate" and "more efficient use of resources".
As of November, five other locations including Sanatorium and Hospital, Sanatorium and Eastern Medical Centre, St. Paul's Hospital, Tai Po Market Sports Centre and Tsuen King Circuit Sports Centre were closed.
Then at the end of the year, another ten vaccination centers will be closed, including the Kowloon Tong Education Service Center and Kowloon Bay Sports Centre, which will reopen this month.
When the vaccination programme was launched in February last year, a government spokesman once declared that there were 29 community vaccination centres "distributed throughout the 18 districts of Hong Kong", but after the number of vaccination centres was reduced to the remaining 10, their coverage has been reduced to only and eight districts.
Even if the leading private healthcare institutions and public hospital vaccination stations are included, Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin and the outlying islands still do not have a place to vaccinate against Forbitx.
A few days ago, the government's newly added mobile vaccination station was stationed in Wong Tai Sin District, and the Kowloon Tong Education Service Center, which is about to reopen, is located in Kowloon City District.
A third dose is also urgently needed
In addition to the citizens rushing to get vaccinated because the "vaccine bubble" is about to expand, the demand for the third booster dose by those who have been vaccinated is also worthy of attention.
At present, the authorities require non-immune weakened persons over the age of 18 to make an appointment for a third dose of the vaccine 180 days after the second dose of the vaccine.
However, half a year ago, on July 13 last year, the population who received the second dose of the vaccine was as high as 1.854 million. As of this Sunday (January 9), there were only about 522,000 people who had received the third dose, accounting for only about 522,000 people. If it is less than 30%, it means that most of the qualified people in the society have not been injected with boosters, and the potential demand for injections in the future should not be underestimated.
At first, the government announced on November 18 last year that the third dose of the vaccine will be expanded. At that time, the difference between the number of people who received the second dose for half a year and the number of people who received the third dose was about 810,000. However, this number has recently risen to more than 1.33 million, an increase of As much as more than 60%, it can be seen that the demand for enhancers is still gradually increasing.
Ironically, Nie Dequan called on New Year's Day this year, "Eligible citizens should act quickly at the beginning of the new year... Please take a look at the vaccination date of the second dose of the vaccine on the needle paper, and get the third dose on time", but he has not yet re-opened. It is a paradox to open up enough community vaccination centers for people to get their shots.
In order to allow the public to successfully receive the first dose of the vaccine before the "vaccine bubble" expands, and to ensure that those who have received the first two doses can receive booster supplementary antibodies, the government must reopen several community vaccination centers that were previously closed as soon as possible.
Especially when there are restrictions on the number of people served by other vaccination channels and the types of vaccines provided, the current vaccination is not fair to the residents of various districts. Therefore, only by restoring the service scope of community vaccination centers to all districts can we truly encourage and Help more people get vaccinated to stop the spread of the mutant virus.
Strict people must be strict with themselves in order to fight the epidemic. Why should we vaccinate against the epidemic? To be "ruthless", we should severely punish those who violate the regulations