Letters | No world-class events can come to Hong Kong under our Covid-19 policy

Readers discuss the dearth of international sports and cultural events in Hong Kong, the difficulty of booking flights out of the city and why frontline civil servants deserve a bigger pay rise

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Liverpool players applaud fans after a match at the National Stadium in Singapore on July 15. A similar international sporting event is unthinkable in Hong Kong, under the current administration’s pandemic policy. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:30am, 30 Jul 2022

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The government’s King Canute policy on Covid-19 remains bewildering. The rest of the developed world has relegated the virus to where it belongs, together with all the other risks that we deal with day to day but which don’t stop us dead in our tracks.

Airports overseas are struggling with the massive upsurge in regional travel. Meanwhile, our own airport is like a morgue.

Sports and cultural events overseas are back, and life has very much returned to normal in the rest of the world. Yes, a lot of people still get Covid, like any other virus, but they generally get over it quickly without any serious consequences and they don’t make a big deal about it.

Elsewhere in Asia, we recent saw Liverpool and Manchester United football clubs play to adoring supporters at packed stadiums in Thailand and Singapore. It is unthinkable that with our current administration, such events could take place in Hong Kong, as they would have in previous years. Nor can any other world-class events possibly take place in Hong Kong, whether sporting, cultural or commercial in nature, until the current policies are aligned with international standards.

So why are we so different from those countries? Have they got it all wrong and we alone are right?