Like a dam holding back a flood, the longer a region’s defences hold up, the worse the resulting disaster once they fail
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe Omicron variant has swept remarkably fast through places with little past exposure to covid. As a share of population, South Korea has logged more cases in 2022 than America has during the entire pandemic. Hong Kong’s surge has been even more abrupt. Until this February, it barely had any positive tests. Its cumulative caseload per person now matches Finland’s.
Hong Kong and South Korea provide a natural experiment. Both were mostly covid-free before 2022, and had little infection-induced immunity. But South Korea has had a strong vaccine roll-out, whereas Hong Kong has had one of the rich world’s worst. Its messaging was decidedly mixed, giving equal weight to arguments for and against vaccination, and telling people with chronic diseases to consult doctors before getting jabs. Its nurses worried about personal liability for mishaps.
Unfortunately, Hong Kong’s elderly were unusually hesitant. In South Korea take-up of booster shots, which are needed to protect against Omicron, is greatest among the old. In Hong Kong, in contrast, those most likely to get boosted are middle-aged. Just 37% of its septuagenarians and 14% of those 80 or older, the most vulnerable groups, are boosted—similar to the shares among people aged 20-39 and teenagers, respectively. When Omicron first struck, these rates were even lower.
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