Coronavirus: Hong Kong parents urged to get young children inoculated ahead of vaccine pass scheme expansion

With about 50,000 unvaccinated children set to be barred from entering restaurants and other premises covered by the scheme, Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan on Thursday called on parents to abandon their vaccine hesitancy.

“I hope parents will not risk the health of their children,” Yeung said after opening the temporary inoculation centre at Lai Chi Kok Park. “As I have repeatedly said, [infected] children will be suffering a lot of physical and psychological pain, parents will also be very worried, and ‘long Covid’ will also affect the children in a lot of ways.”

Yeung touted the Lai Chi Kok centre, which has been made with a converted container, as an example of using innovation to make access easier and boost uptake, adding more sites would be opened in due course, including one at Wong Tai Sin Plaza.

As the Post previously reported, some 50,000 unvaccinated children aged five to 11, or about 12 per cent of that age group, could be ineligible for a vaccine pass from Friday. Yeung said the figure was “not a lot”, adding it took into account recovered patients in the age group.

Yeung, who is responsible for the roll-out of vaccines locally, said officials would continue to engage parents in schools as well as through popular online channels. Officials recently launched a video campaign at Baby Kingdom, an online forum used by many parents of young children, to spread information about vaccine efficacy and safety.

An online petition launched on Tuesday is calling for exempting children from the vaccine pass scheme on the grounds that barring unvaccinated ones from many public places could affect their development. By Thursday night, it had collected about 1,500 signatures.