More Hong Kong residents are getting their first shots of COVID-19 vaccine as a cluster of infections grows and an expansion of the vaccine mandate looms.
The territory administered more than 7,000 initial injections on both Saturday and Sunday, the most since the end of November, as citizens fear a fresh wave of infections tied to an outbreak at a local restaurant.
That number was surpassed by those getting booster shots as access expanded to all adults on Saturday, with 8,000 and 10,600 given on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
The uptick in immunization comes as locally transmitted cases in the territory, the first in almost seven months, heightened the stakes for the vaccine rollout, which is one of the worst among developed economies.
The Hong Kong government later this month is to launch an expanded vaccine mandate that would require an inoculation to patronize restaurants, gyms and cinemas.
Only about 65 percent of Hong Kongers have received a first dose because of strong hesitancy, especially among older residents. Meanwhile, 5.3 percent of the 7.4 million population have gotten a booster shot, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.
Another preliminary COVID-19 case has been tied to a cluster of infections at the Moon Palace restaurant, the Hong Kong government said on Sunday.
A woman, the wife of an earlier confirmed patient, had a meal with her husband at the restaurant when a Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd aircrew member who later tested positive was also dining with his family.
There have been four other confirmed cases related to Moon Palace.
The government has sent 340 close contacts of the initial patient from the restaurant, and their household contacts, to be isolated at the territory’s quarantine center. The group includes 22 restaurant staff members and about 170 customers.
The outbreak has delayed Hong Kong’s long-negotiated border reopening with the mainland, which local media had widely reported was expected to begin on a trial basis last month.
While Hong Kong officials have offered little clarity on the time frame.
Hong Kong has tightened quarantine requirements for aircrew, which is believed to be the initial loophole that allowed the virus to seep into the territory and seed the local transmissions.
The new requirements have dealt a blow to local airlines and further stretched supply chains that were already under strain.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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