Many people have demonstrated a fallacy in interpreting the concept of “human rights” by overemphasizing its political side and being biased toward generalization. In fact, when it comes to the interpretation of human rights, there is no more authoritative interpretation than the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which puts an emphasis on the fundamental right to life.
Article 25 of the Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living, including health care, sufficient to secure himself and his family’s health and well-being”.
As a medical professional, I firmly believe that the health and safety of every Hong Kong resident is his or her most fundamental and important human right.
Hong Kong is currently suffering from the raging fifth wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has endangered the health of hundreds of thousands of residents, taking away more than 7,000 precious lives, including several young children.
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When we are living in the most difficult and terrifying time, who has stepped forward to protect our basic human rights by providing us with an uninterrupted supply of medical care, nursing supplies and personnel, foods, medicines and daily necessities?
In mid-February, President Xi Jinping issued a directive, instructing the central government to mobilize all human and material resources on the Chinese mainland to help safeguard the lives and health of Hong Kong residents
In mid-February, President Xi Jinping issued a directive, instructing the central government to mobilize all human and material resources on the Chinese mainland to help safeguard the lives and health of Hong Kong residents.
Within a few days, batches of medical experts and personnel, as well as resources of various kinds, continuously flew into Hong Kong to provide support in response to an urgent request from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
Three delegations of epidemiologists and intensive care experts arrived in Hong Kong, providing timely, professional and practical advice on strengthening Hong Kong’s anti-pandemic strategies and reducing infections, morbidity and mortality. Mainland reinforcement teams helped greatly enhance Hong Kong’s testing capabilities.
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By dispatching two mobile testing vehicles and more than 100 medical and nursing professionals, Hong Kong’s sampling and testing capabilities have been greatly improved.
Meanwhile, the isolation and treatment capacity of Hong Kong has also been tremendously strengthened with the completion of several makeshift hospitals and community isolation and treatment facilities built by mainland companies.
These facilities have gone a long way to contain the spread of the virus. Aside from the donation of droves of medical supplies — such as N95 and KN95 masks, rapid antigen test kits, and proprietary traditional Chinese medicines — to Hong Kong, measures have also been taken to ensure the stable supply of foods and daily necessities to Hong Kong from the mainland.
Through the centralized transshipment point of cross-border freight, the restoration of railway freight and the expansion of waterway transportation, the stable supply of foods and daily necessities to Hong Kong has been ensured, and the overall situation of Hong Kong has been greatly improved.
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All these were achieved while many parts of the mainland were fighting their own battle against the virus. For example, Shenzhen, Jilin and Shanghai were coping with local outbreaks.
The central government has put Hong Kong at the top of the priority list, and the total amount of supplies provided to Hong Kong has reached over 900 million yuan ($141.3 million) in monetary value, which has not factored in the services the mainland medical and nursing staff provided free of charge in Hong Kong.
Numerous teams of doctors and nurses from the country’s top three hospitals have left their jobs and families behind, and risked their health or lives in Hong Kong’s dangerous situation.
Their assistance has greatly improved Hong Kong’s ability to isolate, test and treat patients as well as coordinating the fight against COVID-19. Psychologically, the support of the central government has boosted the confidence of Hong Kong people in overcoming the pandemic.
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It was a great honor for me to speak at the side event of the 49th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council held a few days ago, as a citizen, a father of four children and a medical professional, about protection of human rights under the threat of the coronavirus and how the central government has come to our rescue by providing us much-needed assistance to fight the virus and save lives.
With Hong Kong’s public healthcare system having been overstretched by the contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus, the most important and fundamental human right of many local residents — the right to health and freedom from the threat to their lives — was largely compromised.
This is the darkest moment in decades for Hong Kong, whose residents are in desperate need of help.
It is the central government that came to our rescue whereas those Western human right promoters who had been vigorously peddling flamboyant concepts of human rights and freedom, and who missed no chance to criticize the “encroachment” of rights and freedom in Hong Kong, are conspicuously absent from the scene; worse, those Western media outlets which had been unusually vocal over Hong Kong residents’ rights and freedom, ridiculed Hong Kong’s bungled anti-pandemic strategy.
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They really don’t care a damn about Hong Kong residents’ rights or freedom but the opportunities to bash China.
Facing the threat of Omicron, which has not only threatened lives but also interrupted the supply of foods and daily necessities, what Hong Kong people most urgently need is humanitarian and emergency assistance, without which their most fundamental human rights will continue to be severely compromised.
Fortunately, the threat to our fundamental human rights is being gradually tackled with the full support of the Chinese mainland.
Human rights are not some hollow concepts, as preached by some Western critics, but substantive things that are more palpable in times of crisis like during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The author, a radiologist, is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Coalition and a council member of the Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Association.