Letters | How to ensure Hong Kong’s mass at-home testing is not a futile exercise

Readers discuss the loophole in the voluntary testing exercise, pandemic policy fatigue, and the need for more fine-grained Omicron data

Coronavirus Hong Kong

Letters

Published: 11:30am, 6 Apr 2022

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The Hong Kong government has asked all residents to do the rapid antigen test for three consecutive days starting on April 8 and report to health authorities if positive. As a reward for being an honest citizen, you run the risk of being quarantined in a container or a newly built facility, perhaps sharing a room with strangers, regardless of your symptoms, for at least seven days.

The vast majority of positive cases are asymptomatic and people recover in a matter of days. I would be all sorts of a fool to subject myself to needlessly miserable quarantine if I were to test positive.

To get the most cooperation and honest reporting, the government should clearly state that those who test positive have a choice of home isolation. Short of that option, the whole exercise will be a waste of resources and produce meaningless data.

People need a clear goal to strive for.

Lam Kam Sing, Tai Po

Vaccine pass may be a hassle, but one we’ve to live with

Hong Kong’s vaccine pass scheme requires anyone stepping into restaurants, wet markets, supermarkets and some other public premises to have had at least one dose of vaccine unless they are exempted.

I have not heard many complaints about this but one woman sought to challenge the scheme in court. The judge has rightly dismissed the case. He upheld the legality of the scheme, saying it struck a reasonable balance between public health protection and restrictions on individual rights.

Residents have a right to express their resentment towards the government for its frequently changing pandemic policies, which cause much hassle and can be disorienting. We might be fed up too with fighting the pandemic. But what can we do about it?

If you don’t like the regulations here in Hong Kong, perhaps you can consider emigrating to other places. But mind you, there are no utopian places in this world.

Randy Lee, Ma On Shan

Better Omicron data needed to plan an exit strategy

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has pledged to maintain the city’s international status. Here’s what she can do.

Firstly the government should come to terms with the characteristics and severity of the dominant Omicron BA.2 variant. How many Omicron cases do we have? What are the hospitalisation and ICU rates? What is the death rate? Such information is vital in order to plan an exit strategy. Lam admitted last week that the government was not sure about the actual number of cases, which would affect the calculation of the death rate. It most certainly will.

China’s Omicron data based on lockdowns and mass testing is enlightening. Over the past few days, Shanghai has reported thousands of cases daily with the majority of them asymptomatic. The massive prevalence of asymptomatic cases shows that the risk of severe illness and death is extremely low with Omicron – no Covid-19 death has yet been reported in Shanghai. These results mirror the Omicron situation overseas.

Hong Kong’s death figures are higher simply because our officials were complacent and slow to identify and protect the most vulnerable in our society before the fifth wave hit and surged. But now that the mainland has helped us get our act together in protecting those vulnerable people, the number of deaths is declining fast.

Omicron offers opportunity rather than risk. Based on the actual health implications, there is no good reason why Hong Kong could not follow Singapore’s example and open up to the world without quarantine.

But if Hong Kong opens up to international visitors, we must be able to guarantee that no cases cross the border into China until they have also learned to live with the virus – which may be a long time coming.

Christian Rogers, Wan Chai