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John Lee
OpinionComment
Alice Wu
Alice Wu

Opinion | On Covid-19 quarantine and heatstroke risk, John Lee’s team must put pragmatism to work

  • A pragmatic leader cannot fail to see the illogic of quarantining healthy arrivals while letting infected people already in the city recover at home
  • Nor would a pragmatic leader continue to hold an annual sports day when the city is experiencing record high temperatures

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Chief Executive John Lee meets the media before an Executive Council meeting at the government’s headquarters in Admiralty on July 12. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
Alice Wu
Chief executive John Lee Ka-chiu has described himself as pragmatic on more than a few occasions. Most memorable, perhaps, was when he spoke to the Post in an exclusive interview with chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo before taking office. In that interview, Lee countered being labelled a “hardliner” and “landmine detonator” by calling himself “pragmatic”.
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Lee defined the term as “what needs to be done will be done and should be done”. But isn’t pragmatism less about the should-dos, and more about the could-dos? After all, there are many things that should be done; the trouble for every administration has always been finding the best way to work through the to-do list.

But it seems that Lee, having tried the “pragmatic” cape on for size, likes it, and thus he has continued to use the term as a way of differentiating himself from his predecessors. “I am pragmatic. I am not a chief executive who only shouts slogans,” he confidently proclaimed in a televised speech after he took office.

Hongkongers, in fact, have long been described as pragmatic – a euphemism of sorts for being politically apathetic – but whether that is true or if that has changed matters little.

For while this self-proclaimed pragmatism is all well and good, it means nothing without action. And for the Lee administration, there is one obvious way to show how a healthy dose of practicality can make all the difference.

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In the face of the very real problem of rising Covid-19 infection numbers, Lee is working on a new command structure to coordinate 13 government task forces, vowing to “achieve the greatest effects with the lowest costs”. Let’s hope that Lee’s pragmatism can allow for a healthy dose of reality here.

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Hong Kong health chief says any hotel quarantine reduction will be based on Covid infection data

Hong Kong health chief says any hotel quarantine reduction will be based on Covid infection data
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