Run on Vaccine Bookings, Medicines in Hong Kong as China Eases Travel Rules

why are you in such a hurry? I took my final shots in March and brushed against Covid itself in July when I returned to the UK. So I think my immune system is pretty strong. But this may be your last chance to win the slot. We are about to be invaded by visitors from the mainland desperately seeking foreign-made vaccines that we cannot return to.

Hong Kong has been fortunate to be free of mainland visitors during the pandemic. Yes, it took a deadly illness to accomplish that: he doesn’t have six luxury watch and jewelry stores on one block like he did pre-pandemic. Now the same store sells masks, medicines and cosmetics. The mall, which previously housed only Bvlgari, Bottega Veneta and Burberry stores, now houses at least an electronics store, drug store and sporting goods store or two.

The first travelers to Hong Kong from the mainland are likely to come from neighboring Guangdong province. They are day trippers. Greedy buyers of fast-moving consumer goods that they can’t even afford – what Hong Kongers call ‘locusts’ – medicines, cosmetics, baby formula, diapers, etc., will soon be back, including my wife. You can expect to come. In China – or simply when they see it on the shelf, they don’t believe it’s real.

That applies above all to the vaccines we receive today. This is my his 4th shot of the BioNTech vaccine and today I got the updated ‘bivalent’ version for his BA.4 and BA.5 strains of Covid. Even something as simple as this vaccine is politicized today in Hong Kong, where Chinese propaganda seeps into every pore.

My vaccine certificate correctly shows that I received a dose made by BioNTech (BNTX) which would have come from manufacturing sites in Germany and Belgium. The book and vaccine brochure state that this is a vaccine “by Fosun Pharma” but made “in collaboration with the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech” and that both Fosun-BioNTech and Pfizer-BioNTech share the same name. We manufacture medicines using technology.

Oh, and as a footnote: “The Comirnaty vaccine supplied to Hong Kong is manufactured by BioNTech in Germany.” Of course, Fosun Pharma is a mainland Chinese company and part of the larger Fosun International HK:0656 and (FOSUF) conglomerate, so in China he only has sales contracts for BioNTech pharmaceuticals, but the best I need to earn an amount. It has nothing to do with making drugs. Still, if you are in Hong Kong it’s “Fosun Pharma”.

Even the drug is off-limits in mainland China. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz secured a concession allowing German foreigners to obtain his BioNTech vaccine on the mainland during a visit to Beijing in November. However, the general public can only obtain medicines made in the mainland, and studies abroad have shown that they are not as effective.

We don’t know much about what’s going on with China’s vaccines because the numbers of cases and deaths in China are spurious and don’t accurately represent the extent of the outbreak in China. has not been updated from the original strain of the virus, or at least the Chinese propaganda machine has not defended this point (it certainly does).

They therefore remain “old-fashioned” vaccines made from dead or denatured cells of Covid-19, meeting the World Health Organization’s criteria of being 50% effective when studied outside of China. Just filled shots. I don’t see any peer-reviewed studies on their effectiveness. Chinese citizens are told that’s all they can get.

China’s elite stockpile Pfizer’s (PFE) post-infection antiviral drug, Paxlovid, and offer it to business associates as a perk. Both Chinese Communist Party officials and executives are hoarding drugs at exorbitant prices. financial timesin a story suggesting that demand for the drug would become “the embodiment of health inequalities in the country.”

It also shows how Communist Party officials elevate themselves above the “common people” their party is supposed to serve. He said he received two boxes of Paxlovid from a friend who obtained the drugs in the hospital department where he works, and then decided to give them away. The drug is currently only available in Shanghai and Beijing and is to be reserved for elderly patients with underlying conditions such as cancer and kidney failure.

There is no Chinese drug equivalent to Paxlovid, the only foreign-made Covid remedy available in China. Sales were first allowed in March as Shanghai battled the Covid outbreak. Officials now estimate that 250 million people have likely contracted Covid in the past three weeks. Faced with mounting public outrage, China lifted most of its “Covid-zero” restrictions on his Dec. 7, with the highly contagious Omicron variant defeating even the toughest lockdown measures.

Still, China insists on promoting traditional Chinese medicine as a cure for Covid.Paxlovid shipments have been kept to a minimum, with officials claiming they don’t want to penalize Chinese-made medicines. doing.

Hong Kong offers vaccines free of charge to anyone who wants them, whether they are residents or not. The clinic I visited today was fairly quiet at 11am on a weekday, but expect all appointments to be fully booked once travel restrictions are lifted on January 8th. Hong Kong drugstores are already in peril with the sale of paracetamol, with local buyers sending the drug across the border to friends and relatives. When the “locusts” arrive, the few remaining stocks are removed from the shelves.

I think you should be careful with your wishes. Economies around the world are suffering from her three-year starvation of Chinese tourists, which has become a major driver of the travel industry in markets such as Thailand. Now they are expected to return with vengeance, which could lead to new Covid infections.

Japan, India and Taiwan have newly announced that they will require PCR testing for people arriving from China. This ruins many travel plans. Japan, for example, will require all travelers from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau to enter through one of her four airports set up to process tests. Narita and Haneda in Tokyo, Kansai International Airport on the outskirts of Osaka, and Chubu Airport near Nagoya. .

Cathay Pacific Airways HK:0293 and (CPCAY), the flagship carrier of the beleaguered Hong Kong, has sold flights to Japanese cities such as Sapporo on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido. It’s the peak of powder season for snowhounds. However, those who purchased that fare will have to rebook as they are no longer able to land directly on the island.

Cathay’s share price remains 24.5% lower than it closed at the end of 2019. Cathay is the most obvious victim of China travel disruptions. However, overall retail sales in Hong Kong are sluggish. Retail rents fell 33.2% in 2019, a further 23.4% in 2020, and a further 4.3% in 2021.

In Hong Kong, you are required to wear a mask almost any time you step out the door. So, ironically, when destinations such as Thailand offer far greater freedom, the return of Chinese tourists may not be as profitable. are day-trippers and Hong Kongers traveling abroad suggests that retail sales will only surge in certain segments, mostly cheap and fast-moving goods.

The end of zero Covid in China is definitely positive. But the pain of the disease’s sudden outbreak across China will be felt well into 2023. We can see the end of the pandemic, but we are not there yet. In the meantime, I’m glad I grabbed the booster before it ran out of stock, and it remains protected while the Covid storm sweeps across China.