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Opinion | Hong Kong won’t win the Covid-19 fight by blindly following mainland China’s playbook
- Even with the help of mainland expertise, Hong Kong cannot replicate the conditions necessary for lockdowns and mass testing to succeed here
- Instead, the local government should work alongside Beijing to devise strategies for managing an endemic virus, living up to its role as a policy lab for China
Reading Time:4 minutes
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The “dynamic zero Covid” versus “living with the virus” debate has been overtaken by events. Omicron is out in the wild, spreading in malls, trains, buses and lifts. The true number of infections is probably many times the confirmed cases and already outstripping the Hong Kong government’s ability to track, trace and isolate.
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Nevertheless, the government seems bent on deploying mainland-style Covid-19 strategies that no longer have any chance of working here.
Say the government goes ahead with its plan to test Hong Kong’s entire population. How exactly will that work? China reportedly tested all 14 million people in Tianjin in 4½ hours. Even with help from mainland testing teams, does anyone think Hong Kong can accomplish anything like that?
Mass PCR testing requires people to congregate at testing centres, creating a fertile environment for mass contagion. One superspreader can infect the entire queue.
We could hand out home test kits, but they are hard to monitor. Most Hongkongers are desperate to avoid being thrown into government isolation facilities and will go to great lengths to avoid submitting a positive result. If people are given the option to pay a fine in lieu of being tested, many will do so.
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Waiting until mid-March to commence citywide testing is actually the least of the plan’s drawbacks. With an out-of-control virus, it does not really matter when we roll out pointless mass testing.
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