All through the pandemic period in Hong Kong, there have been contesting opinions about what policies are best. Once the omicron fifth wave hit, both the range and volume of contesting opinions were significantly amplified. Some critics made reckless claims that everyone could see what was coming and so the lack of something close to picture-perfect preparation by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government was indefensible. It may have looked that way, inspecting a rearview mirror from an armchair. But the global reality is that countless governments have faltered — most sooner than Hong Kong — while trying to cope during the most intense international health crisis in more than 100 years.
External critics of Hong Kong — and thus China — have also been freshly busy. I recently wrote about how downcast the US-led Western media were that the Beijing Winter Olympics ran so successfully (“Scornful Western critics outwitted by thrilling Winter Olympics — https://www.chinadailyhk.com/article/261860#Scornful-Western-critics-outwitted-by-thrilling-Winter-Olympics”). As the omicron fifth wave took off in Hong Kong, this provided a consolation prize for these scribbling faultfinders and they soon piled in with badgering observations about the media-sanctified wisdom of “living with COVID”.
Hong Kong was once a city famed for nurturing problem-solvers. Over the last decade-plus, it has increasingly incubated the broadest range of problem-finders
Singapore and New Zealand are good comparators as we consider where Hong Kong now stands. They are widely — and rightly — regarded as each having done as good a job as possible in pandemic management. Yet, in each case, they lost control while pursuing a zero-COVID strategy: In Singapore, many months before Hong Kong, with the arrival of the delta variant; and in New Zealand, as the omicron variant rapidly spread, with cases rising from around 200 a day to over 20,000 a day within a month.
In the case of Singapore, it is clear that strong, experienced governance has been of central importance in meeting the shifting pandemic challenges so well, especially measured by the way it has kept the death rate low after moving, by October, to “living with COVID”. Nevertheless, Bloomberg reported that coping with this change of policy still generated “tension, division and fear” within Singapore.
It needs to be remembered, too, that Singapore maintains some of the tightest media controls in the developed world. According to the Reuters Institute, print and broadcast media outlets in Singapore are largely run by two major corporations that are associated with the governing party, each of which maintains a dominant online presence. Also, in 2019, Singapore introduced a robust anti-fake-news law to counter falsehoods (especially online) aimed at exploiting the city’s fault lines. This law has been used to curtail certain negative COVID-19 messaging related to Singapore.
The scope for regular, skewed dispatches about the claimed medical — and political — hazards of COVID-19 vaccines, for example, is far lower in Singapore than in Hong Kong. Interestingly, the Reuters Institute ranked Singapore second-highest, in terms of media trust, across the Asia-Pacific region in 2021 with a score of 45 percent — compared to 40 percent in Hong Kong and 31 percent in Taiwan.
It is right to be deeply concerned about the huge and deadly impact of the fifth wave in Hong Kong. But we should retain a balanced perspective. The tail should not wag the dog. We need to remember how much Hong Kong has achieved — and banked — in managing COVID-19 so well over the first two years.
By late January, the total number of COVID-19 infections in Hong Kong still stood at under 14,000 with less than 220 deaths recorded. Up until that time, Hong Kong, had demonstrated a notable capacity to retain strong control of COVID-19 outbreaks — including delta. At the same point in time, by way of example, infection rates in the United Kingdom and United States were 90 to 100 times higher per capita than in Hong Kong.
Public hospitals and clinics in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region handle millions of individual outpatient cases every year. This system does a vital job in looking after the medical welfare of Hong Kong’s huge low-income population. Hong Kong’s successful “zero-COVID” approach underwrote the ability of this program to continue looking after its massive, vulnerable client base very well, until early 2022.
The understanding about personal responsibility for maintaining personal health, embedded in the Hong Kong social contract, is one part of the foundation for the primary positive outcome. Other intervention factors were also important. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, the relevant authorities in Hong Kong learned from experience, especially within Hong Kong but also from across Greater China. Hong Kong was very well served by both its front line and research-focused medical sectors. They became increasingly skilled in COVID-19 investigation, detection, tracing, isolation and treatment.
Rapidly enhanced medical and quarantine facilities also helped protect Hong Kong. A medical center to help fight the pandemic, the North Lantau Hospital Infection Control Centre — with over 800 beds — was built within five months and opened in late February 2021. An additional temporary community treatment facility (with up to 1,000 beds) was established by the Hospital Authority within the large AsiaWorld-Expo complex. Meanwhile, a major, purpose-built quarantine center was constructed in rapid time in several phases on vacant land at Penny’s Bay. This provided over 3,400 units that could accommodate several thousand people. These public quarantine facilities housed around 70,000 “confinees” during the first two years of the pandemic. This is all apart from the extensive hotel quarantine system established by the HKSAR government for tested, COVID-19-free people returning to Hong Kong.
To have put all these safeguarding facilities in place so swiftly is a singular accomplishment. Consider this comparative example. Australia finally part-opened its first ever, purpose built COVID-19 quarantine facility a month ago, near Melbourne, two years after the pandemic struck. It cost HK$3.4 billion ($430.8 million) to build. It has a capacity of 1,000 and has been opened with 500 beds. In fact, as The Guardian report noted, for Australia, this was a significant accomplishment as it was completed in “just nine months”.
Hong Kong was once a city famed for nurturing problem-solvers. Over the last decade-plus, it has increasingly incubated the broadest range of problem-finders. As the fifth wave has unfolded, we have been reminded, emphatically, of how much can be achieved once a collective problem-solving ethos applies. The help provided to Hong Kong by the “can-do” Chinese mainland has simply been exceptional, including: rapid building of extensive new hospital and quarantine facilities; critical medical and other staffing assistance; and fixing supply chains for medical, food and other necessities. This reminder confirms one of many important lessons we need to draw from the harrowing experience of the last two years.
Still, we also need to remember that, when it comes time to square the ledger on pandemic management, Hong Kong overall continues to merit a clear positive mark compared, for example, to the US. I would say a sturdy 7 out of 10 alongside a wobbly 3 out of 10.
The author is a visiting professor with the Law Faculty of the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.