CX orders all cabin crew to get jabbed

Cathay Pacific is requiring all cabin crew to get vaccinated by August 31 and is considering whether to sack un-jabbed employees as the city faces a new threat.

The highly infectious and deadly Delta Covid-19 variant has been spreading worldwide.

The Hong Kong flagship carrier said 65 percent of its cabin crew and 90 percent of pilots have been vaccinated so far.

The Centre for Health Protection yesterday called for citizens to get vaccinated soon, citing studies that the German-made BioNTech vaccine is more than 80 percent effective against the Delta variant first discovered in India.

To guard against the Delta variant, health authorities yesterday announced it would move hard-hit Britain from high to very high risk from next Monday, meaning plane passengers must obtain a negative Covid-19 test result within 72 hours of boarding flights.

Upon arrival, they must observe 21 days of hotel quarantine, which will not be shortened for fully vaccinated travelers.

Hong Kong reported seven Covid-19 cases yesterday, including six imported and one local case from an unknown source. All of the fresh cases carried the L452R mutant strain commonly found in the Delta variant.

The local case involves a 27-year-old airport ground crew member living in Wan Hang House, Wan Tau Tong Estate, in Tai Po, who tested preliminary positive on Wednesday.

In a memo sent to Cathay staff yesterday, the chief operations and service delivery officer, Greg Hughes, said demands on aviation service will increase in the summer holiday, when more cabin crew will have to work in "closed loops," where they work on multiple flights for up to three weeks.

Between each flight they return to a specific hotel while waiting for the next operation. After each set of "closed loop flying," crews will observe mandatory hotel quarantine followed by 14 guaranteed days off.

Hughes said vaccination can offer extra protection to flight safety and only vaccinated cabin crew can be waived from a quarantine when flying to other countries.

He said crew should receive the jabs by August 31 and those who are unfit for the vaccines will be moved to non-flying positions as transitional arrangements, but in the long run the airline will review whether to continue with their employment.

Cathay had 20,000 employees in December, says its web site.

Cathay said it will review the future employment of those who are unable to become vaccinated and assess whether they can continue to be employed as aircrew."

The airline last month told staff "it looks increasingly likely that in the future being vaccinated will be an essential requirement" for aircrew.

The vice chairman of the Cathay Pacific Airways Flight Attendants Union, Amber Suen Tak-yin, has said vaccination should be a personal choice by staff and the company should respect their preferences, instead of pressuring them."

A Cathay flight attendant "P" said most staffers had backed down and got vaccinated.

"We understand the pros of getting the shots for our job nature, but still there are uncertainties on side effects," she said.

"If it wasn't for the 'jab for job' situation that we're in, most of us would not have taken the vaccines yet and would have waited longer to observe the side effects."

Earlier this month, the Peninsula Hong Kong also told employees they could be sacked under cost-cutting measures if fewer than 70 percent of them are vaccinated by next week.

The Airport Authority has announced all workers entering the restricted area at the Hong Kong International Airport must be vaccinated or test negative for Covid-19 from August 1.

By Wednesday, 2.03 million citizens had taken at least one jab of vaccine - 29.7 percent of the city's 6.84 million population above 16 - including 884,400 taking Beijing-made Sinovac and 1.14 million German-made BioNTech.

Of them, 1.32 million - 19.3 percent - have completed both doses.

Meanwhile, authorities have sent 180 close contacts of the airport worker to quarantine, including his family and 50 to 80 airport employees who attended the farewell party of a colleague.

The Centre for Health Protection believed the man had contracted the Delta variant from an imported case and the source of his infection is being traced.

Government advisor Gabriel Leung from the University of Hong Kong said the Delta variant is "tremendously dangerous" as one carrier can spread to six to eight others, which could explain its rapid transmission in European countries.

Hong Kong's tally yesterday reached 11,906, including 210 deaths.

jane.cheung@singtaonewscorp.com