Speaking on a radio program, Lau said one of the incentives of taking the shots is to travel with the family, believing that people who have been inoculated can enter countries like Thailand and Japan without the need to quarantine for 14 days.

Lau said given the sufficient supply of vaccines, it should be easy for Hong Kong to reach herd immunity. However, the public remains doubtful as there were multiple post-inoculation deaths. He said the authorities should explain whether there was a direct link between vaccination and deaths and prevent the spread of the rumors.

Lau added that the University of Hong Kong will launch a vaccination program for secondary school soon and face-to-face teaching can be resumed if 70 percent of the students in the school have taken the jabs.

Separately, the reservation of BioNTech vaccines will resume on Monday as a new batch of around 300,000 jabs arrived in Hong Kong yesterday.

Citizens can book time slots starting from 9:00 am today. Those who have failed to take their reserved booster shots due to the suspension will take the shots between April 5 and April 10.

Last month, the government suspended a batch of vaccines for the coronavirus disease from BioNTech, citing safety issues related to the packaging of the vials. The supplier reported the investigation results to the Department of Health on Thursday, after not finding any quality and safety issues.