under a “controlled transition” sooner rather than later would be the “safest” strategy for Hong Kong, according to public health experts from the University of Hong Kong .
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. “The safest strategy is, no matter how much we don’t want to admit it, a controlled transition to endemicity ,” Leung said. “Option one is a transition, and option two is the ultimate destination. They are on the same path, depending on which point in time we are talking about.”
But there was a more apparent difference on vaccine effectiveness against severe conditions among the elderly who had taken two doses, with 72 per cent for Sinovac recipients and 90 per cent for those who had chosen BioNTech.An elderly resident gets vaccinated in Peng Chau. The HKU’s Professor Gabriel Leung has urged the public to get three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine for best protection against the virus.
As about 60 per cent of the city’s population was estimated to have been infected with Covid-19, it would probably be safer for the remaining 40 per cent to be exposed to the milder Omicron variant, instead of an unknown strain which might be deadlier and more transmissible, he added.Leung noted that scientists had identified that the so-called hybrid immunity, meaning protection derived from vaccination and previous infection, would provide the best and most long-lasting protection.
Leung said he was not trying to judge which option was better, but that carrying on with the zero-Covid strategy would require compulsory universal testing, an exercise which the government had on Monday said would be suspended.