The SAR government, in response to warnings of a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 spreading in the UK, has announced a temporary ban on flights from the UK effective Tuesday. Those who arrived in Hong Kong before the latest entry ban are required to be quarantined in designated hotels for 21 days instead of 14 because the new strain reportedly spreads faster than the old one and demands more sophisticated tests. That also means more stringent contact-tracing is needed to prevent the new variant from spreading in the territory.
These emergency measures, however, may fall short of stopping the mutated COVID-19 pathogen from entering Hong Kong because the UK is just the first to report a sudden surge of infections by the new strain, and existing research showed it was already found in other countries around the world.
What has happened in the UK is an alarming call for the special administrative region. The city, the communication hub of the world, demands a series of proactive and preventative strict measures, which have proved effective in the mainland’s densely populated cities. Some people believe what the UK is experiencing is the result of waiting for “herd immunity”, even halfheartedly. The US government never officially adopted herd immunity but let America become No 1 in both positive test results and COVID-related deaths anyway. In this regard, the citizens in Hong Kong should wise up to the failures of the two leading Western countries.
Though some naysayers in Hong Kong tend to be suspicious about the measures adopted by the motherland, there is no question that China has already set the best example of doing whatever is necessary to stop COVID-19 from spreading so far, which explains why the mainland is the only major economy in the world to have achieved positive growth this year. Other major economies, such as the US and many of its allies, could not pull off a meaningful economic recovery because they chose not to follow China’s example all along, or, like Japan and South Korea, did in the beginning but relaxed their efforts later on.
The mentality in Hong Kong, on the other hand, seems to have been referencing Singapore’s approach more than other countries but not quite as effectively. This suggests the SAR government needs to upgrade its current strategy significantly if it wants to turn the situation around during or immediately after the holiday season.
To confront the problem, the SAR government took the initiative to seek closer cooperation with the mainland health sectors. On Tuesday, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung and Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee met with members of the National Health Commission with whom they discussed curbing the pandemic though an all-round approach including distributing vaccines and introducing a health code system. The talks are expected to ease mounting pressure from the public, which is calling for the government to take proactive measures to contain the fourth wave. It is time for the administration in Hong Kong to follow the footsteps of the mainland cities and, as experts at the University of Hong Kong have mentioned, to find out as soon as possible whether a new or more-contagious strain has reached the city.
