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Letters | Hong Kong third wave: opening up now will make pandemic even worse
- Hong Kong’s best chance to return to normalcy is to take all necessary steps to suppress the current outbreak and hopefully form travel bubbles with places that have done the same
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I refer to your July 31 opinion piece, “Hong Kong third wave: return to common sense and get people back to work”.
Mr Richard Harris correctly points out that Hong Kong has done better than most countries in controlling the virus. However, as the stand-first puts it, he makes several statements to bolster his argument that we need to play the odds and accept some pain to get Hong Kong moving again. These, in my opinion, do not provide valid arguments for Hong Kong to open up.
He states that, “Vaccines are unlikely to help much, except psychologically.” While no one is really sure if an effective vaccine will be available soon, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, and others have expressed optimism that one will be developed and become available as early as next year.
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Mr Harris argues for reducing the quarantine period to one week based on the fact, “it takes on average about six days for those in quarantine to become symptomatic.” While six days may be the average, individual experiences vary and many infected cases will have longer incubation periods, hence the need for a longer quarantine period.
He correctly asserts that children are at very low risk of dying from Covid-19. However, children inevitably will pass on the virus to each other, then go home and potentially infect their parents and grandparents.
He conjectures that since, “We know which adults are vulnerable”, “we can ring fence them until they are vaccinated or the pandemic has passed”. How exactly this is to be accomplished in a city in which three generations often live together in cramped flats is not explained. The strategy of staying open while protecting the vulnerable was proposed and quickly abandoned in the United Kingdom and has failed miserably in Sweden.
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