What is already known about this topic?: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), China and Singapore are both facing considerable Omicron variant epidemic. However, the overwhelmed medical system and high case fatality ratio (CFR) just occurred in Hong Kong SAR, China but not in Singapore.
What is added by this report?: The low vaccination coverage in Hong Kong SAR, China, especially among the older adults, is shown to be a primary reason of its recent high CFR.
What are the implications for public health practice?: Facing the potential epidemic risk, non-vaccinated, non-fully-vaccinated, and non-booster-vaccinated people in China, especially the elderly, should get any type of accessible vaccine, which could save lives when the infection unfortunately befalls.
Keywords: COVID-19; case fatality rate; the elderly; vaccine.
Copyright and License information: Editorial Office of CCDCW, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2022.