by Lo Fung

When listening to the work report from Carrie Lam via video link, Chairman Xi Jinping once again emphasized patriots governing Hong Kong is the only way to ensure full governance from the central government. Those pro-Beijing camp and communist political groups who claim to be patriotic must be overjoyed when receiving this news and “telling” how the government should govern more actively. Unfortunately, these “leading force” have little general and political knowledge and ability. Their suggestions are unrealistic and meaningless, or worse still, harmful to the overall governance. The citizens are sighing with worry about what long-term damage create if the government takes any of their suggestions as a courtesy.

The latest example must be the opinion from Starry Lee, Chairperson of the DAB (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong) regarding the introduction of the mainland vaccine. Lee, the elite who is also the Chairperson of LegCo (Legislative Council) House Committee, publicly requested the government to introduce the mainland vaccine as soon as possible. She thinks the government should not worry about the figures from the third clinical trial because the numbers do not guarantee the vaccine has no side effects. She also said that many people are confident with the mainland vaccine, and they worry that their bodies cannot accustom to “foreign vaccines.” More shockingly, Chairperson Lee said it is more important to see how many people have adverse effects after the injection than research figures.

Being the Chairperson of the biggest party in the LegCo and former member of the Executive Council, Lee is probably the leading figure of the pro-Beijing camp and communist political group. There has been a rumor that she might succeed as the “number one in Hong Kong” – the Chief Executive. But her suggestion shows how she disrespects science and does not understand the basic operating logic of public policy. She also only aims to please the superior and has no regard for the safety of the citizens’ lives.

Let’s start with science. Every government in the world has strict regulations on newly developed vaccines. It allows them to be used on humans only after many tests and having enough supporting figures to avoid failed pandemic solution or triggering an even worse virus. In the past, a vaccine takes three to five years or even longer to develop. Only when the Wuhan virus pandemic swept through the world and caused many lives, the pharmaceutical companies and scientists gave their all to develop and produce effective and reliable new vaccines within a year to control the pandemic. As much hurry as they are in, the pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and regulatory agencies, including the experts and committees in Hong Kong, insist on considering science and safety first and require the organizations that develop the vaccines to submit figures of at least three rounds of clinical trials (the figures from the third trial, which has the most number of people and groups tested, are the most important) to verify the efficiency and side effects of the vaccine, which form the objective and scientific basis for deciding whether to use it or not.

Now Starry Lee has the nerve to say vaccination with the mainland vaccine can start without the third trial’s figures. That is asking the experts and government to inject the vaccine into human bodies without enough supporting figures and scientific proof. This is blatant politics over science. This is a denial of the strict, scientific, and objective vaccine review procedure. The danger and harm caused are hard to estimate.

Besides, deciding according to scientific figures and strict procedures is neither because we blindly worship science, nor it would be 100% foolproof, but to let the officials, experts, and organizations who make the decision know what risk they are facing, understand the effect and price to pay, so that they can plan follow-up contingency strategies accordingly. For example, the third trial figures of the BioNtech vaccine showed that its overall protection rate exceeds 95%, which means out approximately 5 out of the 100 vaccinated people could still be infected by the virus.

With these figures, the government and medical institutions believe it is worthwhile to introduce the BioNtech vaccine because of its high overall protection rate, knowing the storage and transportation is more complicated and expensive. It can even keep the virus under control and improve the pandemic situation after a large-scale vaccination. After weighing the pros and cons, they decided to use this vaccine. It also earns the confidence of the people. If the government listens to Lee’s suggestion and recklessly vaccinates people without waiting for sufficient proof and, instead, relying on how many people get side effects after being vaccinated, it indicates the government cannot grasp the percentage of people getting the protection and does not know whether the virus is under control. This is not only a waste of a large amount of public money, but the government and experts also cannot judge the epidemic situation after vaccination. They would not know whether the social distance measure should remain in place and cannot predict whether they should adjust the supply of isolation beds...etc. In short, Lee’s suggestion is like asking the government and experts to “fight the epidemic blindfolded.” They are bound to be walking onto a lamppost.

If that happens, who will suffer the most? Of course, not those precious, superior elites like Starry Lee, but the normal citizens who have no options but to live through huge stress and the pandemic. They may get sick because of the insufficient protection from the vaccine; they may feel a false sense of protection after the vaccination, not knowing the vaccine has null effects, and give up wearing masks and thoroughly washing hands. That would lead to a more aggressive virus or even produces a new variation of the virus and form a bigger and scarier outbreak. By then, there will be no more hope to revive the economy; the infected and death rate will increase greatly. Is Starry trying to help or to harm with her ridiculous vaccine theory?

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