(Eagle News) — Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, along with members of her cabinet, received the first dose of Sinovac vaccines which were shipped on Friday from mainland China.
Friday’s delivery of the Sinovac doses were part of the first shipmemt of one million Sinovac jabs.
Lam, on Monday, Feb. 22, said that she and her senior officials decided to make the public their vaccination to set as examples to the Home Kong citizens so they would also get immunized against coronavirus.
“I’m extremely pleased that I and my principal officials have come to this community vaccinations centre to receive the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine. We are taking the Sinovac vaccine today which was developed and manufactured in the mainland, because this is the first vaccine that has arrived in Hong Kong last Friday with a total of one million doses,” Lam said.
-Vaccines free for all HK residents-
“This act of us kick starts a very important vaccination program in Hong Kong. We are very determined, very committed to rolling out a free and universal vaccination program for the people of Hong Kong, so that we could get ourselves out of this epidemic as soon as possible,” she said.
Lam received the vaccine at a vaccine center set up at Hong Kong’s central library. Other cabinet members including Health Secretary Sophia Chan, Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng and Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung, also received the Sinovac jab after the Hong Kong chief executive.
Lam asked Hong Kong residents to register online so they could also receive the vaccines as soon as possible. She also assured the residents that the government has procured enought vaccines for all.
“We have enough vaccines procured, we will do all we could to make it easier for residents to receive the vaccination. But at the end of the day, this job, like all efforts we have made in the past year, requires the full collaboration of the people of Hong Kong,” she said.
Hong Kong has around 7.5 million people.
The Sinovac jabs were the first COVID-19 vaccines to arrive in the territory, ahead of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines which are expected by the end of February.
(Eagle News Service)
