The Government announced today the COVID-19 vaccination medical exemption certificates issued by seven private doctors will not be accepted and will be deemed invalid from October 12.

According to the information provided by Police, the seven private doctors are involved in its arrest operations to date for allegedly abusing the issuance of medical exemption certificates. The legal proceedings are ongoing for some of those cases.

The Government pointed out that according to the eHealth records, the seven private doctors have issued in total over 20,000 medical exemption certificates which are still within the validity period, accounting for more than half of the medical exemption certificates that are still valid.

It has reasonable grounds to suspect that the private doctors concerned did not properly follow the Department of Health’s guidelines when issuing the medical exemption certificates.

In this regard, the Government will no longer accept the medical exemption certificates previously issued by the doctors concerned as proof of the holders being unsuitable for receiving COVID-19 vaccination.

The Health Bureau and the department have also referred the relevant cases to the Medical Council for follow-up.

Members of the public holding a medical exemption certificate issued by the relevant doctors may consult other doctors to ascertain whether their physical condition is unsuitable for receiving the COVID-19 jab.

Having considered that people may need time to consult other doctors, the medical exemption certificates issued by those seven private doctors will be deemed invalid from October 12.