Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday lashed out at rumours claiming the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines from mainland China was politically motivated, saying the acquisition was backed by two expert committees of medical professionals.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor added the government would seek funding approval from lawmakers before Christmas for a fourth round of relief measures targeting those worst hit by the pandemic.

In a weekly press conference before meeting her Executive Council, the city leader was also asked why her annual official trip to Beijing had been postponed, but declined to comment on whether the delay was related to Hong Kong’s struggle with Covid-19 or state leaders’ busy schedules.

“Regarding [this], the arrangement is made by the central [government], which will inform the chief executive, who will then attend the duty visit in Beijing,” she told the press.

“I don’t have any details to disclose yet. If the timing is confirmed, we will issue a press release.”

Separately, sources confirmed that all Hong Kong government ministers’ deputies, known as undersecretaries, as well as the ministers’ political assistants, will take their oath of office at the government’s headquarters on Wednesday morning. The ceremony was expected to involve all 12 undersecretaries and 14 political assistants, the sources said.

At least 18 permanent secretaries, the top civil servants at the government’s 13 policy bureaus, were also expected to take their oath of office on Friday, the sources added.

Hong Kong’s leader and 16 ministers took their oaths when they took office, but the requirement was extended to other top officials and civil servants this year.

On the coming coronavirus relief package, a source previously said the level of new government support would be close to the third round’s HK$24 billion (US$3.1 billion), and would be directed at groups hardest hit by the latest social-distancing measures, some of the toughest of the health crisis so far.

Lam, meanwhile, reiterated that the procurement of vaccines was based solely on prevailing scientific evidence and that the government’s goal was to provide the safest vaccines for the entire Hong Kong population as quickly as possible.

“Just like all our other anti-epidemic works, there was malicious spreading of rumours, people stigmatising and politicising the vaccine procurement, while they quoted unidentified persons with negative comments,” she said on Tuesday.

She said those rumours surfaced over the weekend after the government announced last Friday that agreements had been reached to secure 7.5 million shots from mainland-based Sinovac Biotech. The messages she referred to described the procurement as a political decision made for the benefit of mainland or individual companies.

Lam added the government arrived at the decision after referring to expert views from two scientific committees under the Department of Health, while pointing to the differences between Covid-19 and flu vaccine procurement.

“The competition for Covid-19 vaccines between countries is keen,” she said.

“The purpose of signing advance purchase agreements is to reserve in advance vaccines which have a higher chance of success for the public, notwithstanding that the vaccines are still in the development process and have yet to get approval from the relevant local regulatory authorities.”

Lam added: “We will analyse the statistics once they are ready, and would permit emergency uses afterwards, so that people can get the injection soon.”

In an overnight statement on Tuesday, the government said the decision on vaccine procurement was based on safety, efficacy, quality and supply considerations, and did not in any way involve political factors.

Apart from reaching an agreement with Sinovac Biotech, which is to supply a million doses next month, the government has ordered another 7.5 million shots from Pfizer-BioNTech.

One million doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be distributed in the first quarter of next year, through mainland supplier Fosun Pharma. A third deal with AstraZeneca, also involving 7.5 million shots, is in the works.

An insider previously told the Post that Sinovac Biotech was chosen at least in part because the government needed to consider the potential blowback from the pro-establishment camp if it did not pick a mainland producer.

But Professor Gabriel Leung, dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, who along with other experts advises officials on vaccine selection, said the city largely made the right call, and had based its decision on scientific and commercial factors.

Leung said Sinovac deserved its place as it had shown promising first and second trial data, which had been peer-reviewed and published in respected journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Fellow government adviser Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, from Chinese University, also threw his weight behind the government’s decision, saying scientific and logistical reasoning was followed.