Health workers are seen in protective gear inside a locked down portion of the Jordan residential area to contain a new outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, China. (Representative image: Reuters)

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when people in most countries are looking forward to vaccinating themselves against the deadly virus infection, most people in Hong Kong are choosing not to get vaccinated.

In the region with a 7.5 million population, 11.6 percent of people have so far received the COVID-19 vaccine since late February when the campaign was launched, reported Bloomberg.

According to the report, in countries like the United Kingdom and Singapore where the demands of vaccines are so much that most of the adult population has not yet been granted access. However, in Hong Kong the shots are not being used to inoculate, which led the government to warn people that some will expire in September, it said.

The vaccination drive in Hong Kong has faced skepticism from the beginning. It was fueled by a breakdown of communication between the unpopular, unelected government and population, said the report.

“I won’t take the vaccine, because my friends and I just don’t want to follow any instructions or recommendations from the government,” a 16-year-student told the publication.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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People in Hong Kong refuse to get COVID-19 vaccines for political reasons

In Hong Kong, the shots are not being used to inoculate, which led the government to warn people that some will expire in September.

Health workers are seen in protective gear inside a locked down portion of the Jordan residential area to contain a new outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, China. (Representative image: Reuters)

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