The government has ordered an additional 300,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Elsie Ao Ieong U, informed on the sidelines of the vaccination program launch ceremony.
The total number of vaccines ordered has been raised from the initial 1.2 million announced to 1.5 million, according to the Secretary and confirmed by the director of the Health Bureau (SSM), Lei Chin Ion.
Initially, the health authorities had informed that the government ordered a total of 1.2 million doses, which would be distributed in equal portions of 400,000 of the three main vaccines available at the time in the market: Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNtech, and AstraZeneca.
The number has now risen, with the inclusion of 100,000 additional doses from Sinopharm as well as an additional order of 200,000 doses of a new vaccine from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
According to Lei, the additional order of vaccines is justified by the fact that local authorities cannot forecast when the supply of the vaccines previously ordered will arrive in Macau, nor whether the companies will be able to supply the full quantity ordered.
“We ordered more vaccines, namely from Sinopharm, because we fear that we cannot obtain enough from the other suppliers. There is currently a huge demand worldwide for the vaccine and even the European Union is having difficulties ensuring their supply for European countries. We want to ensure that we will have more vaccines and that we get them as early as possible,” Lei said, explaining the new order.
Earlier, the Secretary said that the remaining 400,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine would arrive continuously, expressing hopes that a second shipment would arrive in Macau “at the end of the month,” Ao Ieong said.
When questioned as to whether the government is considering opening the borders to people who have been vaccinated, Ao Ieong replied that such a decision still requires consideration and coordination with tourism policies, adding, “We can’t assure that [even with the vaccine] we can fully prevent Covid-19. The vaccine is not 100% effective so we need to first see the reaction and if we can achieve a good level of immunity [in the community]; we will see what we can do.”
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