Only half of Chinese aged 80 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, highlighting the risks as President Xi Jinping’s government tries to contain omicron outbreaks nationwide. About 51% of the age group have received two shots and some 20% have gotten boosters, health officials told reporters at a briefing in Beijing Friday. Having such a large number of unprotected elderly people puts China at risk of a scenario like Hong Kong’s, where an even larger proportion of elderly people are unvaccinated. They account for more than half the city’s deaths in the current Covid-19 wave, its worst of the pandemic with new cases now in the tens of thousands each day. Nearly 5,000 people have died in Hong Kong since early February, most of them older people.