Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@scmp.com or filling in this Google form . Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification. China’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been successful. Given what we know about the virus, it is not so much the number of infections that matters but the number of deaths. The Chinese government’s efforts went down well with the local population, as they were able to go about their lives in relative normalcy over the last two years when many parts of the world went through long periods of restrictions. In recent months, however, significant restrictions have been put in place in major Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, under the Chinese government’s “ dynamic zero-Covid ” policy. While such restrictions have also been imposed in other countries in the past, the difference is in the timing. In the United States, Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, has to much fanfare declared that the country is out of the pandemic phase. In Europe, Covid-19 is not a topic of discussion any more and the last of the pandemic-related restrictions have been progressively lifted, including mask mandates in many countries. China rightly maintains that human life is worth protecting and thus that allowing Covid-19 to spread in society can risk overwhelming the healthcare system, which struggled to cope in the early stages of the pandemic. Despite the videos circulating online of unfortunate examples of mishandling by those enforcing the Covid-19 policy, Chinese people are very resilient. However, in cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong, which stand as the brightest examples of China’s might and progress and where local governments are renowned for their efficiency and pragmatism, some are questioning the necessity of the restrictions. The current situation is very different from early in the pandemic as many are now vaccinated and the current dominant variant, Omicron, doesn’t have as strong an effect as earlier ones such as Delta. I humbly submit, as a resident of China and a friend, it’s time for the country to take its victory lap. Jose Alvares, Macau John Lee on right track with housing solutions Hong Kong chief executive hopeful John Lee Ka-chiu unveiled his election manifesto on April 29. After the social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic, Hongkongers are earnestly looking forward to the next administration as a turning point. While one cannot blame the events during the pandemic purely on the government, many mishaps could have been avoided or alleviated if fundamental planning and execution were effectively managed. Over the years, housing has become a deep-rooted problem, depriving people of their right to live with a basic level of dignity. As a working member of the building committee of the Housing Authority, I fully endorse the plans listed in Mr Lee’s election manifesto as viable and practical: to explore the feasibility of a new Public Rental Housing Advance Allocation Scheme in select public rental public housing estates as a short-term relief measure, and to adopt innovative construction technologies, such as modular integrated construction (MiC) and building information modelling, more widely to reduce construction time. The Housing Authority is already using MiC in some projects and in some instances, MiC has shortened building time by around 25 per cent. Higher costs, if any, in the range of about 5 per cent would be justifiable in light of the benefits – streamlining workflow and expediting job completion. Mr Lee has proposed setting up a Task Force on Public Housing Projects and a Steering Committee on Land and Housing Supply. Within the first 100 days of the new administration, the task force will submit a proposal to expedite the construction of public housing. In past years, we have expended much energy on accommodating numerous “new normals”. Let’s now get ready to welcome a new chief executive who is accountable, dedicated, and willing to listen and respond. Scarlett Pong Oi-lan, Sha Tin Put career planning quiz on path to better advice Launched by the Human Resources Planning Commission in 2019, Talent.gov.hk is a career exploration website for Hongkongers. The website features three quizzes that recommend career paths based on users’ backgrounds, interests and skills. The commission should consolidate these quizzes to enhance the user experience. In both the quizzes on skills and interests, users have to answer at least six questions about their preferences for certain job conditions and their competence levels in specific tasks to receive some recommendations. Yet, the recommended career choices will be updated when more questions are answered. It is not clear how many questions the user should answer to receive the most useful advice. The quiz on user background collects information such as educational attainment, fields of study, years of work experience and current occupation. This quiz is rather inflexible as predefined answers that appear based on user input must be selected. For example, users currently not working cannot finish the quiz as “unemployed” is not one of the pre-existing options. As the three quizzes are presented on the same web page, users may be confused about which quiz they should take. Since career decisions have to be made taking into consideration a range of factors, a single quiz covering all three aspects would be more effective to better understand users’ career development needs. The commission could also collect feedback from users to assess their thoughts on the recommended career paths to further improve its recommendation algorithm. Lixiang Wan, Kowloon Tong