Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUL 2021年7月 亞博匯 83 專欄 author José Pinto in the medical journal The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific on Macau’s vaccination challenge and its link to tourism recovery, casino profitability and fostering city resilience. Not longago, Iwasoneof fiveadults in theelevator of a Macau hotel. I calculated that statistically, only one of us was vaccinated. I was tempted to conduct an on-the-spot elevator survey asking everyone, “Did you take the vaccine? Why? Why not?” Creating more data on vaccine hesitancy in Macau would certainly be valuable in navigating a path to higher inoculation rates, including information around age, education level, household structure, employment sector, resident/non- resident and more to help guide the government’s vaccination messaging and imagery. Useful data around vaccinating those aged under 16 years may also become a possibility in the future. The issue of increasing vaccination, as part of ongoing border reopening and recovery, needs to consider the assertions in the medical literature that, like the seasonal flu, COVID-19 will be an endemic disease. As Y Lau wrote in a Hong Kong Medical Journal article titled “Looking beyond COVID-19 as a pandemic, “With the attainment of herd immunity through vaccination … this will render COVID-19 as