Letters | Nine ways to improve Hong Kong’s Covid-19 strategy and reopen borders
- Readers suggest a more sustainable path out of the pandemic, question the lack of social distancing in Covid-19 testing queues, and wonder why ‘partygate’ lawmakers can’t take responsibility
Perhaps there’s another way to achieve our epidemic-prevention goal more quickly and sustainably which would require an amendment to the implementation of protective measures and the redeployment of resources as follows, if we don’t want to move to “mandatory vaccines”.
Second, repurpose Penny’s Bay, holiday villages or North Lantau Hospital for those who cannot effectively isolate at home due to living conditions and redeploy testing resources to support them.
Third, allow companies to advise or impose restrictions based on their operating model – to keep businesses running. Some are moving to mandatory vaccination, others do weekly testing for the unvaccinated to come to work.
Fourth, reopen all public facilities and keep children in school. Retain mask wearing and social distancing. Continue with all restrictions for the unvaccinated without exemption.
Fifth, as Covid-19 re-enters the community, home quarantine will be required – only if very sick would one go to hospital – making sure beds are only for the very ill. Largely, people would be isolating at home or in Penny’s Bay.
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Sixth, no more community testing or lockdown required as we expect to get Covid-19 based on the spread overseas. Redeploy resources to support hospitals and Penny’s Bay.
Seventh, stop putting close contacts in Penny’s Bay. Ask them to isolate at home. While some will have Covid-19, the rates will be spread out.
Eighth, remove all flight bans immediately as the airline-specific ones don’t really make sense.
Last but not least, reduce all quarantine to 10 days in line with the science and move quickly to zero-quarantine once we know we can manage the hospital numbers.
Although a reversal of the current model, these steps will help achieve the same goal and are more sustainable as they will enable us to achieve herd immunity quicker, possibly remove vaccine hesitancy, and protect the vulnerable.
Tina Atkinson, Pok Fu Lam