Opinion | Hong Kong’s John Lee is living up to his ‘result-oriented’ pledge by relaxing Covid-19 rules

Name: ‘Let Hong Kong be Hong Kong again’: Inbound travellers welcome lifting of Covid curbs
Uploaded: 2022-12-18T11:08:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 58 s
Description: ‘Let Hong Kong be Hong Kong again’: Inbound travellers welcome lifting of Covid curbs

Lee wasted no time in leveraging on the mainland’s easing of pandemic restrictions to remove most of Hong Kong’s remaining curbs

It seems he has won Beijing’s support – but he must trust his own team, too

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Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announces the further easing of Covid-19 restrictions during a press conference at the Hong Kong government offices on December 13. Photo: Jelly Tse

Alice Wu

Published: 7:08pm, 18 Dec 2022

First things first: hats off to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu for his boldest move yet – relaxing most of Hong Kong’s remaining Covid-19 restrictions. Lee purportedly bypassed his team of experts, political advisers and his own governing team, including the health minister, to make the decision. And, for his decisiveness, he must be credited.

The move was a surprise to most. It came less than a month after Lee quite audaciously told the public not to be fixated with “0+0” and vowed to stop referring to anything as “zero-plus-what”. Most of Hong Kong had already stopped waiting for 0+0 and the reopening of the mainland borders. Those who held out hope were forced back into a familiar holding pattern.

For three years, Hong Kong has struggled to find its place while sandwiched between two very different Covid worlds, and shut out from both.

There were attempts to reach out to our “brother”, Macau. But try as our last chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor might, it became clear by the summer of 2021 that our brother was not going to let Hong Kong travellers in. The requirement of 14 consecutive days of zero local infections that Lam and the city fought so hard to achieve simply got doubled to 28 days by Macau.

Hong Kong was on its own from that point onwards. We faced the dual pressure of being part of a zero-Covid country, and of maintaining the facade of an international and open city. The hands of our leaders were tied with minuscule manoeuvring space.

It’s not just the scrapping of the requirement to scan the “Leave Home Safe” venue code before entering premises, or of the amber code mechanism for healthy inbound travellers – allowing them to finally enjoy unrestricted entry into restaurants and attractions – that are significant.

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‘Let Hong Kong be Hong Kong again’: Inbound travellers welcome lifting of Covid curbs