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Protestors hold placards in Parliament Square as Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends the weekly Prime Ministers’ Questions session in parliament in London on January 12. Johnson has apologised for attending a garden party during Britain’s coronavirus lockdown, but brushed aside opposition demands that he resign. Photo: AP
Opinion
Inside Out
by David Dodwell
Inside Out
by David Dodwell

In two pandemic years, how political divisions and policy missteps have failed the world

  • Since the first outbreak, the coronavirus pandemic has been marked by political failure in the US, the UK, Australia, Japan and China
  • In Hong Kong, our leaders have been forced into a false choice of opening up to the mainland or the world. Harm to Hong Kong’s economy might be permanent
David Dodwell
David Dodwell
Why you can trust SCMP

If our fate during the Covid-19 pandemic had rested in the hands of scientists and the medical profession, we would have been in good hands. Almost certainly the pandemic would by now be a fading – if painful – memory.

But here we are, two years after the outbreak, reporting 320 million Covid-19 cases worldwide, and five million deaths, with the Omicron variant energetically propelling a fifth viral wave. Communities worldwide are stressed, impatient, panicked and often in despair. Many have lost jobs, careers and income, and face economic hardship, with no prospect of early recovery.

The failure that has brought us to this point is not a failure of science or medicine. It is not due to an absence of knowledge of how to track or treat the virus. The failure is a failure of politics – both domestically and between countries.

The political failure is not just here in Hong Kong, where Carrie Lam’s government has “cancelled” the most important festival in the Chinese calendar in an increasingly desperate and ultimately pointless effort to keep the Omicron tide outside our boundaries.
The failure sits also in Joe Biden’s administration in the United States, in the beleaguered Boris Johnson’s government in Britain, in the Australian government’s embarrassing battle with a shamelessly unvaccinated Novak Djokovic that has the Australian Open Tennis championship on tenterhooks, in Japan’s bumbling mismanagement of public opinion through the summer Olympics, and of course in China’s original sin – procrastination over sharing information about the coronavirus outbreak.
Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic departs from the Park Hotel government detention facility before attending a court hearing at his lawyers’ office in Melbourne, Australia, on January 16. Photo: EPA-EFE

The pandemic, unconcerned with political or national boundaries, has ruthlessly exploited political and social divisions. In particular, it has taken ruthless advantage of countries that call themselves democracies, exploiting their core principles of freedom of speech and personal privacy to seed dangerous division and hobble effective policymaking, and contorting legal systems ill-designed to adjudicate the right to personal freedom against the imperative of protecting human life.

It has made chumps of the political leaders tasked to manage the pandemic and protect the public. It has rendered toxic behaviour that would in normal times be perfectly innocuous – like joining a “bring your own booze” party, driving across the country to visit ailing relatives and friends, and attending a colleague’s birthday party.

Some leaders have brought embarrassment and controversy upon themselves – like the Scott Morrison government’s clumsy handling of an unvaccinated Djokovic, or Johnson, who imposed strict lockdowns on the British people and then brazenly broke those rules in the garden of 10 Downing Street.

Fifth wave highlights the flaws in Hong Kong’s pandemic policies

Others have been hapless victims of toxic political forces that were already at work when Covid-19 arrived. Among these we should count Biden, who rode into office in part because of his predecessor’s disdainful mismanagement of the initial explosion of Covid-19, but then found his white knight credentials quickly eroded as the pandemic continued to spread. The US’ love of litigation has also made a mockery of Biden’s efforts to provide clear rules to bring the pandemic under control.

It is arguable that Lam’s administration here in Hong Kong has also fallen victim to toxic forces outside its control. Management of the pandemic has inevitably been caught up in the poisonous politics of the past three years. No sooner had the administration emerged bloodied from the community’s pro- and anti-mainland conflict, which underpinned street riots and unprecedented social disruption through the second half of 2019, than the pandemic was unleashed upon us.

The decision to pursue a draconian “zero-Covid” strategy seemed sensible, and even today must be credited with the remarkably limited suffering experienced by the local community.

But as the pandemic surged on, leaving Hong Kong and China among a tiny minority of economies willing or able to live with the austere consequences of being closed off from the rest of the world, so the decision to align with China (at the expense of Hong Kong’s historically vital role as an international business hub nestled between China and the global economy) has become entangled in the patriotic politics that coloured last November’s Legislative Council election.

Hong Kong will have no future as a business hub unless it opens up

The reality is that Hong Kong must be able to work seamlessly both into China and out into the global economy, or it cannot work in either direction. The present patriotic politics has forced a false choice on our political leaders of opening up to the mainland or the world. If this is not quickly resolved, harm to Hong Kong’s economy may be huge and permanent.

Politics aside, the scientific and medical guidance is clear and simple: share information on viral threats internationally and as fast as is possible; lock down until vaccines are available; vaccinate everyone; maintain effective social distancing (including mask wearing) at least until vaccine-based immunity takes hold; restore safe local and international travel by applying an agreed set of protocol.

People wearing protective masks skate at Bryant Park in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, on January 14. The scientific and medical guidance is clear: maintain effective social distancing (including mask wearing) at least until vaccine-based immunity takes hold. Photo: Reuters

There is an old Irish joke about a man being asked for directions. The man said, “I would not start from here.”

So it is with tackling the pandemic. We should never be starting from here. But given where we are today with the less severe but highly contagious Omicron surging through most countries, there is a glimmer of hope that a route can be found. The chances seem good that the mortal threat from Covid-19 may now subside, becoming endemic like flu.

Once we acknowledge that the virus is permanently with us, we should get regularly vaccinated. We should also focus on international cooperation to make sure we learn well from the past two years.

We can count on our scientists and medical practitioners to do their part. But is there anywhere in the world where we can trust our politicians?

David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view

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