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Fourth round of Wuhan pneumonia coming at HK|Kay Lam

蘋果日報 2020/09/19 10:10


The government announced early on the restrictions on eateries would be relaxed that their services would be allowed until midnight, and that the ban on all pubs, nightclubs, party rooms, koraoke rooms, bathhouses and public places of entertainment, even swimming pools and theme parks would be lifted from September 18 onward. It is only 12 days away from the original LegCo election scheduled for September 6, which suggests that Beijing stepping in to meddle with the affairs has always been unnecessary as the election day could have been put off for 14 days simply by leveraging the Legislative Council Ordinance. Not only has the inconsistency of government polices evinced that Beijing pressed on with its decision regardless of the untenability of its position, postponing the election to next year in fear of losing it, but also given prominence to the fact that the essence of Hong Kong’s epidemic prevention measures -  “control attained wise and just” in Carrie Lam’s words, are basically like a chicken running around with its head chopped off, or a shot in the dark, always lagging behind the epidemic development. It can be best summarized as: the epidemic returns once the measures loosen; the society is strangled once they tighten.
Is students resuming classes less imperative than revelers singing karaoke and drinking? Why was the ban on pubs and public places of entertainment lifted while a lot of brick-and-mortar school classes still being suspended? In order to restore operations of different social sectors, shouldn’t they go one step at a time one after another pursuant to their respective importances to the society? Moreover, the government will definitely tie in arrangement for resumption of school classes with opening up border restrictions for cross-boundary students from the mainland, allowing a bunch of people living outside Hong Kong to be granted exemption from entry quarantine at the risk of another outbreak of the disease. For this reason, loosening restrictions on the unnecessary industries is the equivalent of redoubling the risk, which is absurd.
Similar miscalculation was committed by the SAR government as early as June when zero confirmed case had been found for days. Back then, the government slackened curtailment of food and beverage services and even public places of entertainment before announcing resuming school classes. Consequently, the third round of outbreak was seen within half a month because of the people exempted from entry quarantine ushering in the virus, plus the large-scale feasts of the “social groups celebrating the anniversary of the handover”. As of the situation now that the number of confirmed cases is still higher than the average in June, why is the government so impatient as to pretend everything is going well, hastily lifting the ban right after the end of the Universal Community Testing Programme in which only more than a million people took part? Is it again because the government prioritized politics over sciences, bragging about the “loving-kindness” bestowed by the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) upon Hong Kong?
A lesson learned by the whole world over the past nine months is the necessity of  stringently implementing border shutdown policy to fend off the virus; once the virus gets in unfortunately, a stern city lockdown policy has to be carried out to cut off transmission chains for it is better to suffer short-term pain rather than long-term torture. Sadly, those pro-CCP royalists, apart from being concerned most about their votes in elections, would rather promote polices that please Beijing. The so-called health code system, which has been accused of being used as a surveillance tool, has its superficial function – facilitating opening up the borders, even in conflict with the rudiments of preventing the disease.
As to the Universal Community Testing Programme, as expected, the costs are way higher than the benefits of it, which suggests the number of hidden cases in Hong Kong is extremely low. It does not serve to stop the epidemic from breaking out in the future, and has also generated the worst consequence – people are convinced they are immune against the disease after testing negative once. That all the royalists and adherents recklessly and selfishly demanded a comprehensive relaxation of social distancing at all costs would definitely lead to another outbreak like the one in July, which was caused by dinner parties, reversing what the preventive measures are intended to achieve.
As far as we remember, when the epidemic broke out between February and March in the U.S. and Europe, the torpidity of those countries and their inability to learn a lesson from the South East Asian cities was inconceivable to Hong Kong citizens. Nonetheless, Carrie Lam’s administration is even more culpable for the poor performance of Hong Kong over the past few months in comparison with the uncooperative Americans and Europeans, who were in fact inexperienced in handling similar epidemic diseases.

Relaxation in Europe led to epidemic relapse

During the summer holidays, European countries widely loosened social distancing measures, resulting in the recent epidemic relapse, as evidenced by the fact that recently there have been up to ten thousand confirmed cases in France every day. What we can learn from the case in Europe, where loosening preventive measures instantly led to a large-scale epidemic rebound, is that the government is not supposed to fantasize complete disappearance of the virus. Instead, it should clearly prioritize what it is going to do. How much risk it is ready to take in order to ensure normal operations of the society? Which industries provide basic necessities? Which community facilities should open first? Should at-risk libraries be opened? How can swimmers effectively prevent themselves from getting contracted if they hang their masks on the sides of swimming pools? Why were nightclubs allowed to operate before school classes resumed?
The abovementioned examples indicate that government' assessment and choice of what to do first and what later is nonsensical through and through. Before the number of confirmed cases drops to the level of May and June, the pro-government figures fell over each other in their eagerness to ask for a return of normality, and so much as to fabricate excuses for establishing a health code system, which would only increase dealings and contact between the people exempted from quarantine. Such selfish proceedings are tantamount to plugging one’s ears while stealing a bell. The royalists insist on making the same mistakes committed during the third round of outbreak despite everything, while the government holds firm to the policies. It is just a matter of time before the next round of outbreak comes up.
(Kay Lam, commentator)
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