More jabs the only exit guarantee

Britain's "irreversible" exit from lockdowns entered a new stage yesterday with shops, gyms and pubs reopening after an extended period of closure.

Hopefully, the announcement by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to gradually ease social distancing restrictions in the SAR was also the start of an irreversible exit.

Whether this will be the case or not depends on how extensively the population is vaccinated against Covid.

The rollout of vaccines in the UK has been impressive, with around 60 percent of the adult population having received at least one dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.

Latest daily counts revealed a steep and steady decline in both new infections and deaths, with the death toll falling to single digits - the lowest since September.

Vaccination has played a crucial role. It's true to say the British are more receptive to vaccination than their peers on the European continent, where a resurgence in Covid cases has forced countries like France and Germany to impose new lockdowns.

Hongkongers may refer to both the successful and the failed examples and make up their minds to get vaccinated.

Since I last wrote about the subject, it's encouraging to see people turning out in force at centers offering BioNTech jabs.

There's no denying that the German vaccine is catching up fast to become more popular than the Sinovac version - that has nothing to do with politics, but is merely a personal choice.

That is fine as long as people come forward to receive their preferred vaccine. However, it is also clear that a large number of people are still hesitant so many weeks into the vaccine rollout.

They are preoccupied with the traditional wisdom typical of the Chinese - better wait and see what happens to others first rather than protecting those others.

Unless a greater proportion is vaccinated, I fear that the hoped-for exit as laid out yesterday will inevitably fall back to become reversible.

The announcement to increase the number of family members allowed to sit at the same table when dining out, extending opening hours on the condition that staff and customers are vaccinated and opening the land border wider to quarantine-free arrivals from the mainland are clearly designed to motivate the public to head to the vaccination centers.

The phased approach is welcome. The only drawback is that presentation of the roadmap could have been less complicated and easier for the public and business operators to understand and follow.

It would be helpful if the essence of the roadmap could be explained in simple terms with the aid of diagrams.

Although the government has ordered millions of doses of three types of vaccine, it is increasingly evident that the population is showing preference for one type.

At the same time, the future supply of AstraZeneca/Oxford jabs is being questioned by a handful of experts here.

Vaccine tzar Patrick Nip Tak-kuen should start drawing up a contingency plan to ramp up supplies of the vaccine that is in greater demand or secure alternative jabs before it is too late.