Hong Kong is moving ahead with a vaccine passport scheme under which only those who have been vaccinated against Covid and who use a Government mobile phone app will be able to go to bars and nightclubs when they reopen on Thursday. All staff will also be required to have received at least one dose of a vaccine. The scheme will, according to a Government official, enable life in Hong Kong to “return to normal” – despite breaking from all that has previously been considered “normal”. Reuters has the story.
Hong Kong will reopen bars and nightclubs from April 29th for people who have been vaccinated and who use a Government mobile phone application, the Asian financial hub’s Health Secretary said on Tuesday.
Sophia Chan told a press briefing the measures extended to bathhouses and karaoke lounges and would enable the venues to stay open until 2 am. All staff and customers must have received at least one vaccine dose for the venue to be operational and they must operate at half capacity, she said.
“We all hope life can return to normal but we need to allow some time for everyone to adapt to these new measures,” Chan said.
The former British colony has recorded over 11,700 total coronavirus cases, far lower than other developed cities…
Chan’s announcement comes as authorities try to incentivise residents to get vaccinated with only around 11% of the city’s 7.5 million population having received their first vaccine dose.
The take up of vaccines has been sluggish since the scheme began in the Chinese special administrative region in February due to a lack of confidence in China’s Sinovac vaccine and fears of adverse reactions.
Hong Kong began vaccinating residents with doses from Sinovac in February and started offering a vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech in March.
Under the new scheme, restaurant-goers who have not been vaccinated will have to sit in designated areas, away from those who have received a vaccine.
Restaurants will set up different areas for customers who are not vaccinated and for those who choose to write their contact details down on paper rather than registering with the government app. This segment will only be allowed to dine up to four people to a table [whereas the “vaccinated zone” will be permitted to dine up to six customers per table].
Worth reading in full.
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Worse than the PRC.
Errr … Hong Kong is the PRC! That happened when much more serious viruses were around.
It’s relatively autonomous.
Only superficially.
It is the PRC
See? That’s how you do it in an authoritarian Communist regime!
Neil Ferguson and Michael Gove will be foaming at the mouth about how Chinese dominated Hong Kong is leaving us behind when it comes to progressive public health policy.
And so it begins … or continues.
Welcome to the future
Sure I have heard about some thing like this happen before, describe one section of the population as disease spreaders …. it can’t end well!!!
I’d rather be on the table with the un-vaxxed, and paper-only sign in!
There will be more fun at those tables! I would hope if it were to happen here, people would boycott but I am not so sure any more
I have a feeling those tables won’t be an option for long..
Yes indeed – imagine the barrel of fucking laughs those self-virtuous, pompous twats in the “Vax-Only” section will be, bleating on about how disgustingly dangerous we all are … In a way, I think, “bring it on, in the UK” … I’d look forward to sitting in my own in the unvaxxed section, if only to fuck off the rest of the patrons. Kinda like a lone smoker in the back of a 70s plane.
As when quietly having a beer and a smoke in the pub garden as yummy mummy with partner and offspring come outside to have their tofu salad and start tutting at me for smoking when there are children about and can’t you see we’re trying to eat!
Didn’t realize they were actually closed, as I thought Hong Kong was a zero-Covid place like Australia or NZ!
I think one question to put to MPs is a very simple one :
“Do you believe that the ethical principles contained in the Nuremberg Protocols are an expression of inalienable rights, and that SARS-CoV-2 provides no basis for over-riding such rights.?”
Forget confusing the issue with others, or calling them names. Just the simple question, requiring a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer.
What do vaccinated people have to fear from the unvaccinated?
Was about to post the very same quote – vaccines are to protect the vaccinated and the health service, what on earth does this do?? Never mind that it´s not even a vaccine…
The posture may well be indicative of how the nurse would like to treat Lam!
Coming soon to a town near you…
If that happens in the UK and Europe, can we start up a network of pubs/bars that won’t do this?
They are just proving that they have learnt nothing this past year or followed actual Science. If, as evidence suggests, transmission is mostly by aerosol then segregation within the same room is pointless.
As another comment says what’s the problem with mixing vaccinated and unvaccinated anyway? If they work then we should just get on with life and, if they don’t work, then we should just get on with life.