Private services offering Chinese travelers access to mRNA vaccines are attracting droves of mainlanders to Macau and Hong Kong seeking a booster shot that their government has refused to approve.
As part of its dismantling of the country’s zero-Covid policy last month, China’s government also lifted quarantine requirements and other border restrictions, The Guardian reported.
The report said that it prompted a wave of interest in overseas travel, particularly for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday later this month. However, there also appears to be a large contingent seeking the mRNA bivalent vaccines.
Throughout the pandemic, the Chinese government has allowed its citizens only domestically-produced vaccines while refusing to approve foreign-made jabs. Health experts and medical studies have raised concerns about the efficacy of China’s vaccines, which use an inactivated virus, compared with the mRNA vaccines available elsewhere, The Guardian reported.
According to the British newspaper, the appetite for the overseas vaccine is difficult to quantify, but services offering travel packages and self-funded shots in Hong Kong and Macau have become available in recent weeks. Clinics in Thailand and Singapore have also reported increased interest from Chinese travellers.
The BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA vaccine is free for residents of Macau and Hong Kong.
On Chinese social media platform, C3Hong Kong Life, a travel service for mainlanders advertised bookings from 8 January for people to travel to Hong Kong and receive the vaccination in exchange for HKD1,680.
It offered a full vaccination travel package providing “expert guidance, vaccine appointments, round-trip itinerary arrangements, border pickup and other services.”
The Macau University of Science and Technology has a website for people to book vaccine appointments at prices starting at HK$1,360. All appointments – approximately 100 a day – are booked out until mid-February.
Staff at one cross-border travel agency, xBorder, said they had facilitated “many” people travelling to Macau – where entry restrictions were looser than those in Hong Kong – in the last quarter of 2022, and were receiving a lot of interest from people wanting to go to Hong Kong. PC
