What we need is a citywide lockdown
- The enforcement of social distancing rules has been lax, so it’s time to bite the bullet and close all non-essential businesses to defeat Covid-19
The enforcement of social distancing rules has been haphazard. Since the measure was introduced late last month to keep public gatherings to no more than four people, various departments had carried out 11,745 inspections across the city.
They have issued 1,787 verbal warnings but fined only a single group of six middle-aged men who were playing or watching chess on a public housing estate.
What is the point of putting in place the Prevention and Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation if it is not enforced and will have little deterrent effect? You don’t need it if all you want to do is to warn people.
Six fined in Hong Kong's first Covid-19 prosecutions for illegal gathering
Photos taken at the weekend of people crowding into a computer mall in Sham Shui Po and eateries in Mong Kok are more than disturbing. The government has closed the airport to foreign arrivals indefinitely. The argument is that of the 24 new Covid-19 infections recorded on Monday, all but six were imported cases.
But if the authorities continue to take such a lax approach, local transmissions will rise. If something is leaking from multiple holes, plugging one or two holes may slow it down but won’t stop the leak. The whole point of the social distancing measures is to halt the viral spread within the community.
Now, as mainland China reboots its economy and workers return to their jobs, virologist and government adviser Yuen Kwok-yung has warned of a possible third wave of outbreak – the second being that from returning Hongkongers from overseas, from mainland returnees to Hong Kong.
Someone wrote to me, saying it’s “time [for the government] to stop pussyfooting around”. He is absolutely right. The government knows what needs to be done, still it won’t do it.
Executive Council convenor Bernard Chan has warned the government might have to impose a citywide lockdown and close all non-essential businesses, just as Britain, some Canadian provinces and many American states have done.
You know what? It’s time to do it.
