As Mike Enright, his wife Edith and I were putting the finishing touches on our book The Hong Kong Advantage in the spring of 1997, we were spending a lot of time analysing how Hong Kong would weather the transition from British to Chinese control. While we were dismissive of reports of the “death of Hong Kong” – complete with images of mainland troops pouring over the border and mainland officials swiftly grabbing the levers of power despite promises of a “high level of autonomy” – we were clear there would be profound changes that would be unclear and difficult to anticipate. But there were several important changes that seemed clear but were either ignored or failed to attract the interest of those managing the transition. One that particularly concerned us and is relevant to our Covid-19 crisis today was the reality that as Britain’s last governor and his team left on July 1, 1997, they took with them the entirety of Hong Kong’s strategic planning and policymaking expertise. Hong Kong had always boasted a first-class administration, but that is exactly what they were – an administration. Policymaking for Hong Kong was formulated around the colonial governor by a small team imported from London. Once policies were clear and received the green light from the Foreign Office, the task of implementing and administering them was entrusted with confidence to a highly competent administration. If the governor lacked the necessary expertise, experts were flown in. When in 1987 Hong Kong’s stock market dramatically fell 33 per cent on what was called “Black Monday”, a high-level rescue team was flown in from London within days to deliver the policy expertise necessary to mount a rescue. 1987, 1997, 2007... 2017? Hong Kong’s curse of unlucky seven It seems few realised in 1997 that an administration without a strong policy-formulating team underpinning them was perilously vulnerable. Hong Kong was about to become a row boat without a rudder. It had many people able to heave dutifully on oars but none equipped to manage the direction of travel. The first time we saw this shortcoming was in 1998 when Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, as our first post-handover financial secretary, faced the Hong Kong dollar peg crisis. With “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong” and a “high level of autonomy”, he could not call on London or Beijing for aid. Imagine the local and global media uproar if he had tried it. Since 1997, our administrators have too often been tasked to devise strategic responses to repeated crises. They are politically barred from calling for help from in Beijing but often ill-equipped to transcend their usual professional competences as administrators, and they are even less well-equipped to manage the raw political pressures being exerted by local political and business vested interests. Our administrators have been rudderless and ruthlessly buffeted by the pandemic during the past two years. We are at last calling in some serious political heft from Beijing. These include Zhong Nanshan , one of the nation’s top respiratory disease experts and a trusted government adviser on its Covid-19 response, and Liang Wannian , head of the National Health Commission’s Covid Response Expert Team. Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, is in Shenzhen to work with them. Liang acknowledged Hong Kong’s situation was “severe and complicated”, and he emphasised that his role was to better integrate and analyse relevant information and coordinate different prevention and control systems. This was no administrator talking but an experienced strategic planner. We can only hope we quickly see an end to the unnerving, morale-sapping period of flip-flops, procrastination, mixed messages and policy missteps. This is illustrated by the latest confusion over whether Hong Kong will go into lockdown as the administration organises compulsory, citywide Covid-19 testing . Hong Kong’s coronavirus lockdown: what we know and don’t know While insisting there will not be a “wholesale city lockdown”, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has said the government will be “limiting the movement of individuals to a certain extent to reduce the flow of people”. How can this linguistic sophistry not be confusing? When is a lockdown not a lockdown? If the goal is to end the pandemic and restore healthy economic activity, including freedom of travel, there is widespread public confusion over how the present mishmash of initiatives gets us there. Comprehensive testing simply tells us what we already know: Omicron is all around is, we have thousands in our community who are Covid-positive and we have no hope of accommodating that number in quarantine beds . There is also confusion over how, with evidence from governments and health authorities worldwide over what to do and what not to do, we find ourselves with sick patients on gurneys in car parks outside hospitals, mortuaries running out of space to store bodies, and widespread shortages of quarantine beds, testing kits and medical personnel. Such embarrassments might have been understandable in the early months of the outbreak, but not two years on. No wonder the European Union office and various business chambers are reporting an unprecedented expatriate exodus, and international companies are considering leaving the city. No wonder there is panic buying of food and teachers and parents are bewildered over the decision to start summer holiday four months early. Crises cannot be resolved by administrators alone. More is the pity that we made it two years into the Covid-19 crisis without anyone seeming to realise this. We now have a team from Beijing wading belatedly into our local mess. It is too early to tell if it is too late for them to make a difference. For Hong Kong’s sake, I hope they can. David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view