Lam Tai-hing, Chair Professor of Community Medicine of the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, asserted earlier on that Hong Kong people should be “ashamed” of the low vaccination rate, followed by Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung “blackmailing” teachers into “setting a good example with their own conduct” by getting immunized to protect students. In recent days, the SAR government has been alternating carrot with stick in an overwhelming manner so as to boost inoculation, but stubbornly refusing to admit the mistakes it made in dealing with the crux of the matter, hence getting half the result with twice the effort.

The government has placed an advertising campaign in various newspapers to promote “More than an injection”, proclaimed on a web page that community vaccination centers will stop operating after mid-August, and consider donating the vaccine to places where it is needed via the World Health Organization (WHO). Meanwhile, the Expert Committee of Clinical Events Assessment Following COVID-19 Immunisation has declared irrelevant fatalities will not be reported anymore. Sophia Chan Siu-chee, Secretary for Food and Health, explained that the Committee is not going to do so anymore lest it might “bemuse” the citizens by leading them to “note only the details but not the overall picture”.

The abovementioned excuses are hardly convincing. Take community vaccination centers that are going to stop running as an example. Will what happens after September be more important than people’s lives? Why are there places for the centers to operate before but not after September? A government that is empowered to lock down any district and road at any time has gone so far as to claim there will be no place available for people to get vaccinated, so no immunization service will be provided after September. Who will believe it?

What bewilders the citizens even more is that the government was aware long ago that BioNTech expires in 3 to 4 months, shorter than Sinovac. Why did government officials not promote BioNTech first in the very beginning? The government made a big fuss over some minor problems of the packages of BioNTech earlier on by calling a halt to the uptake of it for 12 days. Not only did the measure waste the precious inventory time, but also wrecked citizens’ confidence. However, the government blamed the citizens for not having a vaccination on the contrary. Whose fault is this?

The government and the Hospital Authority issued press releases time and again earlier on denouncing some medical practitioners for “smearing” Sinovac, yet turned a blind eye to some medical practitioners and loyalists “smearing” Sinovac. Starry Lee Wai-king announced at a LegCo meeting that a lot of people are worried they are “not acclimatized” to vaccines from overseas, so have to take in vaccine made in China. Such unscientific, even “discriminatory” and “anti-foreign” remarks against imported vaccines have been percolating through the elderly groups. Yet, the government has never come forward to denounce Starry Lee, or right the wrong.

Some “specialists”, instead of basing their commentaries on WHO’s criteria or the phase-3 clinical data, even made an arbitrary judgement that BioNTech has “stronger” side effect than that of Sinovac. As such, not only was it unable to boost Sinovac, but also it “scared off” those who had wanted to get a jab of BioNTech.

Regardless of how good a vaccine is, it surely has side effect, and the citizens are aware of that. Pitifully, the way the government and even specialists have been handling it has made an impression on the public that the government has been watering down and covering up the side effect probably caused by vaccines with the sayings “no direct proof of side effect” or “no proof of direct correlation”, etc. The rhetoric put forward by the government wanting in public credibility will only make the citizens even more incredulous of it.

Moreover, the government, which announced setting up a $1billion vaccination fund in a high-profile manner, was so calculating when people had a mishap. It has made the citizens feel that victims have to “show direct proof” before they can get help and claim reimbursement. How can the citizens have confidence in it? Before people getting a jab, the government swaggered about it and coaxed them into not worrying about anything as victims would be taken care of; after those vaccinated had a mishap, the cases were said to “have no direct proof”. In view of such a contrast of what had been advertised with what really happened, only idiots would still believe what the government said.

What the abovementioned issue has shown is exactly the result of the government, which keeps on opposing to “politicization of the fight against epidemic”, bringing the evil on itself by boosting Sinovac for political purpose at the expense of BioNTech. In March and April, it was so obsessed with its political objective that it spared no effort boosting Sinovac. In May, when it found that people were even apathetic towards BioNTech, it put forward sophistries, bulldozing people into getting a jab! The question is: Will there really be no BioNTech available after September?

According to an announcement made by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited on December 16, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd procured 100 million doses of BioNTech and already paid half of the total amount, and BioNTech is duty bound to provide the vaccine. Nevertheless, this quality and globally welcome vaccine is yet to be approved by the Chinese government before it can be used on the mainland. Is that “politicization of the fight against epidemic”? Or where will that batch of vaccine be sent to, as they are not allowed to be used in the country? Does anyone prefer dumping it in the sea to supplying Hong Kong with it?

(Kay Lam, commentator)

This article is translated from Chinese by Apple Daily.

Click here for Chinese version

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