Letters | Hong Kong government does not deserve the criticism heaped on it for fifth wave response
- Readers discuss the challenges of fighting an evolving pandemic, the merits of home isolation versus hotel quarantine, and government help to save traditional businesses before they are lost forever
If one has family and businesses overseas, it is understandable that one would want easier travel requirements. If one has businesses and family in mainland China, it is understandable that one needs to have open borders between Hong Kong and the mainland. Most of the criticism stems from one’s own personal requirements and should be viewed as such.
Hong Kong has a dual role of being an international business centre and also the gateway to China. As such, the government has to carefully strike a balance between the two.
It is easy to criticise that the government was ill-prepared to deal with the fifth wave. Yet how many isolation facilities should it have built and testing capacity should it have had waiting for a fifth wave? I doubt there would have been the funding for so many of such facilities when Hong Kong was doing well with its “zero-Covid” policy.