Hong Kong residents undergo COVID-19 testing at a mobile testing station in a park in the city, Feb 10, 2022. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
Without fail over the years, the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) has made sure that every poll result it brought out over a major Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government policy or initiative must be able to show the government in a bad light or provoke negative public sentiment toward the policy/initiative in concern. Its latest one, released on Friday afternoon, is no exception, although it has craftily tweaked the questions to hide its real intention.
It is no exaggeration to say that the HKSAR government has never done it right whatsoever it did or attempted to do, if PORI’s “poll results” are to be believed.
PORI’s tricks of manipulating survey samples and statistical standards to yield the results of their desire are rough and straightforward — even for the laymen, as have been exposed by some genuine experts and pollsters
Keen observers of Hong Kong affairs and fair-minded residents have long realized that those so-called polls aren’t worth a damn. They have known, for a long time, that PORI serves the political agendas of the anti-China camp under the banners of academic freedom and freedom of expression. But this has not dampened PORI’s enthusiasm for their “polls”, which serve as a dog whistle at least.
PORI’s tricks of manipulating survey samples and statistical standards to yield the results of their desire are rough and straightforward — even for the laymen, as have been exposed by some genuine experts and pollsters. These include but are not limited to: Instead of doing random sampling, it draws respondents only from some target groups. An example in point: Its latest opinion poll solicited responses through emails. In other words, all the respondents are from its existing “sample pool”. So much for PORI’s objectivity.
The new poll deliberately avoided the direct question of whether the respondents support or oppose the SAR government’s planned citywide COIVD-19 testing plan. But it asks: Assuming the government has decided to carry out universal testing, how much do you support or oppose the simultaneous requirement that all confirmed cases to be admitted into isolation facilities or hospitals (instead of quarantine at home)? Bingo! PORI got its desired result: 26 percent versus 46 percent.
“More” residents are opposed to the requirement of isolation in public facilities instead of quarantining at home, PORI said. But “home quarantine” has disastrously failed, as the raging fifth wave of outbreak has proved. “Home quarantine” will defeat the very purpose of any citywide virus screening. Is this what those maneuvering behind PORI want? The design of this question has given the answer.
Amid a slew of maneuvers by the subversives lurking in the dark who are consumed by frustration and hatred after they were routed in the 2019-20 insurrection, including the spread of disinformation and outright rumors on social media, to sabotage the joint effort of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland to fight the raging fifth wave of COVID-19 outbreak, PORI surprised few when it came up with another poll on Friday that put the SAR government’s planned citywide COVID-19 testing plan in a bad light. It was merely part of its consistent machinations that serve political purposes.
The author is a current affairs commentator.