Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, after attending a radio programme today (August 21):
Reporter: How do you see the Airport Authority's move to require vaccination of its frontline staff, is it reasonable? Especially when medical proof for those who may not be suitable for vaccination will not be accepted. How do you see that if it's a reasonable move? Because going forward, those staff may not be able to get vaccinated, they are not judged by their abilities to do their jobs but their vaccination records?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think it is important for any organisation to do a risk assessment in terms of its risk posed, not only to its staff but also to other people in the vicinity. So if we look at the airport, it is a high-risk place, especially when we are having inbound travellers, be it transit or coming to Hong Kong from places where may be very high risk in terms of the epidemic situation. For people who are coming to Hong Kong, now all of them are required to have a pre-departure negative test before they come to Hong Kong. In our current system, we can still detect some of the cases that are positive. We have to be very careful, be it the inbound travellers or the transit travellers. Therefore, for those people who are working in the areas whereby they would have close contact with inbound travellers or transit passengers, it is important to protect them and also to ensure that they are vaccinated. I think it is really basic, whether the Airport Authority would deploy or redeploy people who are vaccinated to work in certain high-risk areas is their internal mechanism. And I am sure that they will review the risk associated with a view to protecting staff as well as passengers.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
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