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Opinion | Hong Kong needs its own Anthony Fauci to beat politics-driven fear of vaccines
- Having the chief executive as the leading voice on pandemic control has risked needlessly politicising a community health issue
- The city needs a respected, apolitical voice who can deliver the facts without having science rubbished by those distrustful of the government and its motives
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
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With Hong Kong aflutter in the Omicron crosshairs and pressure from the mainland to emulate its “dynamic zero-Covid” approach, the city is split once again along well-entrenched fault lines.
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Pundits argue that staying in lockstep with Beijing is necessary to reopen the border for quarantine-free travel and economic exchange. Not everyone agrees, but with medical frontiers heading into uncharted Covid-19 territory, they could be right.
Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19 response, recently said Omicron would not be the final variant “because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world”.
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This should give anyone pause as Omicron continues its rampage through a global laboratory of the unvaccinated and susceptible. As China revels in the spotlight of a bubble-wrapped Winter Olympics, it has firmed its resolve to stamp out Covid-19 and prove the sagacity of its unique course.
Yet, tightening restrictions has had unintended consequences in Hong Kong. Divisions have deepened. Debate has retreated underground where it is harder to feel the pulse, offering the government fewer tools to track true infection levels or communicate effectively.
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