View From The Edge | Hong Kong Sevens will showcase absurdity of Covid-19 approach that derailed Oxfam Trailwalker and marathon
- The Oxfam Trailwalker was cancelled for a fourth year in a row, with the government citing the risk of Covid-19 spreading at food and drink checkpoints
- Yet many other situations that could spread the virus continue around us daily, and now thousands are to be allowed to attend the Sevens
The OTW would have spread out its 1,600 runners in groups over a 100km route outside the city – too dangerous on Covid-19 grounds, it seems.
Yet a stadium (almost) full of raucous fans can congregate in far more enclosed environs for the rugby – totally safe, obviously. And let’s not get started on buses, markets and the rest.
It is the third year in a row the event has fallen victim to the virus or its related restrictions, having also being thwarted the year before that, in 2019, because of political protests.
This time, the organisers of the event, which follows the MacLehose Trail from Sai Kung to Yuen Long, thought they had done enough to avoid that fate again. At the previous event, in 2018, there were more than 1,200 teams, but this time they reduced it to 400 as a concession to Covid.
