More than 175,000 children aged between five and 11 have got at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose

This article is more than 12 months old

Kok Yufeng, Transport Correspondent

Jan 28, 2022 04:52 pm

More than 175,000 children aged between five and 11 have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, a month after the national inoculation programme was expanded to include that age group.

More than 25,000 of them have got both jabs, including Education Minister Chan Chun Sing's youngest child.

Revealing this in a Facebook post on Friday (Jan 28), he said many parents have welcomed the move to allow them to take their children for vaccination without the need to piggy-back on their siblings' appointments.

Since Tuesday (Jan 25), children aged five to 11 can walk into any paediatric vaccination centre with their parents for their jab without making an appointment.

This arrangement is applicable only from Mondays to Thursdays.

Previously, only accompanying siblings of a child with an appointment on Mondays to Thursdays could do so.

Mask wearing is still “strongly encouraged” for medically vulnerable people such as seniors and those with acute respiratory infection.

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As a result of the latest move, more than 5,600 children have walked into vaccination centres to get their jabs this week, Mr Chan said.

He reminded parents who plan to tap the walk-in arrangement on Chinese New Year's eve next Monday (Jan 31) to do so by 1pm as the centres will close early.

The venues will be shut on the first two days of Chinese New Year on Feb 1 and 2.

Mr Chan said some parents have asked if the authorities can extend the walk-in arrangement to Fridays and weekends as well.

But this is not yet possible as vaccination appointments are fully booked on those days of the week.

He added that the authorities will continue to monitor the booking patterns and work with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to make it easier for families once more children have been inoculated.

Mr Chan directed parents who have questions about vaccine safety to a video recording of a webinar jointly organised by Ministry of Education (MOE), MOH and the Early Childhood Development Agency earlier this month.

The video has been uploaded onto MOE's YouTube page.

As at Jan 23, a total of 17,699 children below age 12 have been infected with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, with 2,586 hospitalised.