To the great relief of Hong Kong people, last week’s ubiquitous scenes of hysterical shoppers scrambling to snatch just about anything on supermarket shelves have mostly disappeared this week. Supermarket shelves and freezers have been reloaded with various products including daily necessities, except for a few items. Mainland suppliers once again proved they have rarely let Hong Kong people down in a time of need.
This was true during the SARS epidemic in 2003, when the central government authorities made sure daily supplies of food and medical necessities such as face masks and coveralls for Hong Kong were adequate even though demands were much greater on the mainland.
The story remains the same in the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic. Under the instructions of the central government, hundreds of designated supply bases in Guangdong province, as well as its neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, are running full steam to ensure live pigs and other meat, as well as vegetables and fruits, can be adequately supplied to Hong Kong.
Jitters about a potential supply shortage of daily necessities and a dent in financial stability in the SAR have eased after Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on Monday urged mainland-funded companies to help ensure market stability in the city, especially for daily necessities, and to offer financial relief to local businesses struggling to cope with the double whammy of months of riots and the coronavirus onslaught. In fact, Bank of China (Hong Kong) was among the first to introduce measures to relieve the pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals, including waiving fees and allowing borrowers to pay just the interest on loans for up to six months.
In sharp contrast, the opposition camp in Hong Kong has been busy spreading rumors to encourage mass panic and gone so far as to organize a strike by public hospital staff members in an attempt to gain political capital ahead of the September Legislative Council election by trying to discredit the SAR government and drive a wedge between Hong Kong people and mainland residents.
In one of their latest stunts, opposition legislator Kwok Ka-ki smeared the Hong Kong Police Force in a Facebook video, making use of misinformation maliciously fabricated by Hong Kong’s biggest and unfailing fake news fabricator.  
Kwok claimed police had stockpiled 640,000 surgical masks and 13,000 N95 respirators, and planned to buy an additional 65,000 masks in the next two months. The fact is, the police only have enough surgical masks to last a few weeks, and its stock of N95 is only enough for front-line officers’ use for a week.
Kwok said the force did not deserve to be given so many masks, referring to them as “black cops” and “cowards”, and saying they would “do anything to save their necks”. Right-minded people were shocked not only by such vulgar language being vented by a supposedly honorable legislator and medical doctor, but also by Kwok’s apparent ignorance. Police officers are sent to guard quarantine centers and various checkpoints to enforce the quarantine orders, and help conduct on-the-spot checks of those under mandatory quarantine at home.
So who are the cowards? When hundreds of private doctors volunteered to help in understaffed public hospitals during the strike by Hospital Authority staff members allied with the opposition camp, who were in fact shirking their duties at the expense of patients under shaky excuses, where were Kwok and his opposition peers, and what were they doing?
Isn’t it crystal clear who the cowards really are? Kwok and the medical deserters are definitely among them.