The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government today said the central government has the authority and responsibility to improve the city’s electoral system, adding that it will render its full co-operation to the central government. The Hong Kong SAR Government made the statement in response to the deliberation by the National People's Congress of a draft decision on improving the city's electoral system. The Hong Kong SAR Government said to ensure the steadfast and successful implementation of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong must always adhere to the principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong". The principle is fundamental to national sovereignty, security, development interests, as well as the long-term prosperity of Hong Kong, it added. "Only through ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’ can the central government's overall jurisdiction over the Hong Kong SAR be effectively implemented, the constitutional order as set out
Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan today said the reagent used by the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch for COVID-19 testing is not affected by the genetic transformation of the virus’ S protein.
She told legislators the laboratory services branch under the Centre for Health Protection is currently using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) nucleic acid test to conduct and process COVID-19 testing.
On vaccine procurement, Prof Chan said the vaccines advance purchased by the Government are the inactivated virus vaccine by Sinovac Biotech (Hong Kong), the nucleic acid vaccine by Fosun Pharma/German drug developer BioNTech, and the viral vector vaccine by AstraZeneca/University of Oxford.
The health chief noted the Government’s goal is to procure at least one vaccine from each vaccine technology platform. This means it will purchase four different vaccines, with the aggregate number of doses sufficient to serve at least two times the city’s population.
This is to diversify risks and ensure sufficient supplies of safe and efficacious vaccines for the whole of Hong Kong, Prof Chan added.
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