Opinion | Hong Kong’s easing of pandemic control measures is welcome in principle, but offers few benefits in practice
- The new rules seem like cause for celebration until you read the fine print: mass testing has been scrapped yet schools remain closed; the flight ban has been lifted but countries can be blacklisted later; and quarantine for arrivals has been reduced, but a positive test still results in further isolation
I think I may have contracted a new form of long Covid. Whenever I hear the words “government announcement” and “revised pandemic arrangements” in the same sentence, I develop a splitting headache.
Other symptoms include a sense of helplessness at the lack of substantive progress, dizziness from the rapid U-turns, and shortness of breath induced by the sheer effrontery of the refusal to admit – let alone account for or learn from – past mistakes.
According to my doctor, there have been a lot of cases recently – an epidemic, you might say. There is no cure as such, but avoiding the evening news helps a little. Perhaps sufferers should form support groups and take it in turns to monitor current events, briefing other members only on the main non-Covid-19 news items.
But here we are at the end of the month and the whole exercise has disappeared over the horizon. In keeping with our policy of disrupting children’s education at every opportunity, schools remain closed until late April.