The newly-reported cases included 121 local cases, 31 of which had unknown sources.
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor yesterday met with medical and testing staff and extended her Chinese New Year greetings to them during her visit to the community treatment facility at the AsiaWorld-Expo, the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Center and the Caritas Medical Center, as well as two contractors involved in the HKSAR government's testing work.
"Raising the vaccination rate is crucial for Hong Kong to ride out of the epidemic," Lam said.
"Besides providing effective protection for those vaccinated and avoiding severe cases or fatalities among them, it helps safeguard the public healthcare system against overload or even collapse upon any epidemic outbreak," she said.
Since the launch of a mass inoculation program in February last year, about 5.35 million people, or 79.5 percent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have taken at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, while over 4.81 million, or 71.5 percent of the eligible population, have taken two doses.
Meanwhile, 969,638 people in Hong Kong had taken their third booster shot as of 8:00 p.m. yesterday.
As of yesterday, Hong Kong's COVID-19 tally stood at 14,442, including 213 deaths, according to worldometers.info. Hong Kong has a population of 7.5 million.
Macau's COVID-19 tally stands at 79. No novel coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in Macau.
- Xinhua, MPD
- Xinhua, MPD
