Hong Kong executives, including expatriates, are choosing to take China’s Sinovac vaccine instead of the more effective BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine in hopes of speeding up visa and re-entry procedures to mainland China, according to local health officials.
The move follows an extraordinary offer from Beijing to provide “visa facilitation” to foreign visitors who choose to be vaccinated with a vaccine made in China instead of a foreign vaccine. The proposal emphasized fears of vaccine nationalism during the pandemic.
The Hong Kong government offered residents a choice between the BioNTech jab, which has a 95 percent effectiveness rate, and the CoronaVac injection manufactured by Sinovac, whose effectiveness rate is only 50 percent.
An executive at an American company based in Hong Kong said he chose the Sinovac jab “purely” for commercial reasons. “I believe it will give me better treatment to get a visa,” he said.
“[My expat friends] everyone thinks that it makes no sense to buy Sinovac when BioNTech has a much higher efficiency rate ”, he added. “But I need to start traveling.”
Although Hong Kong is part of China, a border with passport control is maintained between them as part of the autonomy granted to the territory in its transfer from the United Kingdom in 1997.
The wider Hong Kong community showed a reluctant attitude towards the government’s vaccination program, partly due to the underlying mistrust of the government among many people, as well as concerns about the safety of the jabs.
But some company executives are more willing to consider the Sinovac vaccine if it accelerates access to the continent. During the pandemic, China imposed strict travel restrictions on those wishing to enter Hong Kong, with a few exceptions.
“Visa facilitation applies only to applicants who have been inoculated with Covid-19 vaccines produced in China,” said the Chinese government last month, without providing further details about the vaccines.
However, some were concerned that European governments and other Western countries would not accept vaccines made in China for travel without quarantine.
Iceland, one of the first countries to offer non-quarantine trips to vaccinated visitors, will only recognize vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency or the World Health Organization. No photos produced in China are on the list.
Yeung Chiu-fat, a general practitioner and former president of the Hong Kong Doctors’ Union, said he had vaccinated more than 200 people with the Sinovac vaccine since the program began in late February.
About 30 percent had received the vaccine to help them return to mainland China. “They were very excited,” he said.
Another Hong Kong executive said that returning to China was “essential” for his job, so he had to choose Sinovac’s jab.
William Chui, president of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists, said that some patients joked about taking a “mix and match” approach so they could travel to China and elsewhere by getting their first jab as Sinovac and the second as BioNTech. “But as a pharmacist, I don’t recommend it,” he said.
Many international executives are based in Hong Kong, but most of their company’s business is on the continent.
Hong Kong chambers of business have warned that restrictions on travel to the continent are undermining the city’s attractiveness as a basis for business operations in China, with some considering moving some functions to Shanghai or elsewhere.
In addition to the lower rate of effectiveness of the jab, Sinovac also faced accusations that it was not sufficiently transparent in releasing data on phase 3 studies. The Hong Kong government expert panel said the rate of injection effectiveness had risen to 62.3 percent if the second dose of the vaccine came after an interval of 28 days.
Singapore health officials said Sinovac did not provide enough information to assess the jab and asked for more data.
Sinovac did not immediately respond to a request for comment.