Coronavirus: Hong Kong primary schools may resume full-day, in-person classes if they meet new vaccination targets
- The Education Bureau says 70 per cent of students need to get one dose of the BioNTech Covid-19 jab or two jabs of Sinovac for full-day classes to return
- Sinovac vaccines were made available to children between the ages of five and 11 starting from last Friday
Hong Kong primary schools will be allowed to resume full-day, in-person classes if 70 per cent of their students have received at least one dose of the BioNTech vaccine or two jabs of Sinovac, and if the same proportion of staff are also inoculated against Covid-19.
The Education Bureau announced its decision in a letter to all schools on Tuesday, with the Chinese-produced Sinovac vaccine made available to children aged five to 11 from last Friday, and the German-made BioNTech jabs to be offered from February 16.
When asked if kindergartens could resume full-day, in-person classes for five-year-old students in their third school year (or K3) if the vaccination rate reached 70 per cent, a spokesman for the bureau said it had no plans to resume full-day, in-person classes for kindergarten students.
“Kindergarten students are young and their self-care capability is relatively lower. In addition, the school setting and ways of teaching at kindergartens are very different from primary and secondary schools,” the spokesman said.
He added that kindergartens should remain open to take care of students who had to go back to schools because of the lack of carers at home.
Parents choosing Sinovac for their children can book an appointment at any of the community vaccination centres, the Hospital Authority’s designated general outpatient clinics, at student health service centres or private clinics.
