The February 5 report by Natalie Wong, Tony Cheung and Alvin Lum, “Coronavirus: single mother uses same mask for five days as grass roots priced out of Hong Kong’s frantic panic buying or too weak to queue overnight”, highlights the plight of many of Hong Kong’s disadvantaged people. Queuing in the middle of the night for a limited supply of masks, or paying four times the normal price for a box of masks at local pharmacies, should not be our only options. What’s worse, reusing the same mask for five consecutive days compromises the integrity of the mask and puts the user and those around her at risk. Why hasn’t the government stepped in yet? Have we put too much faith in the free market, believing that supply will eventually meet demand, as predicted by economists’ models? While the laissez-faire approach to the economy may have contributed to Hong Kong’s prosperity, it also has profound consequences for income inequality , social mobility, housing and the well-being of ordinary people. At a time of crisis, the invisible hand will not put a mask on everyone’s face, and government inaction could prove disastrous. Take the Great Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1849, for example. Guided by the doctrine of laissez-faire, not only did the Whig government in London allow the continued export of Irish grain, thereby aggravating the food shortage in Ireland, relief efforts such as soup kitchens were prematurely discontinued while assisted emigration was also rejected. Eventually, 1 million people perished, and the seed of Irish independence had been sowed. It is true that government interventions don’t always work and government failures could be just as bad as market failures. However, in neighbouring Macau, government intervention has been shown to be helpful. As Raquel Carvalho’s report (“Macau’s calm, organised handling of coronavirus puts Hong Kong panic in perspective”, February 1 ) points out, as early as January 22, the Macau government had the foresight of ordering 20 million masks and centralising supply so that each Macau resident could purchase 10 masks every 10 days for only 8 patacas at designated pharmacies. Nobody is suggesting a Soviet-style command economy works better than our market economy, but at a time of crisis, the government cannot stand idly by and leave mask supply to private enterprises alone. Jimmy Huang, Kwun Tong