Opinion | Hong Kong is back, but it’s not yet better than ever

When the US declared the pandemic ‘over’, the WHO was quick point out that isn’t yet the case

In the same way, signs that Hong Kong is ready to open to the world don’t mean there isn’t still work to do to improve residents’ well-being, particularly our children’s

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Skyscrapers can be seen behind an isolation facility in Kai Tak as a man passes in a mask, on June 28. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 6:45am, 3 Oct 2022

Last month, World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave the world a silver lining: “We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” he said. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.”

Ghebreyesus shared the good news – fingers crossed, of course – for an important reason. It was not merely meant to grab headlines, but also to elicit responses. Amid falling infection and death rates, we must take care of those who still lack the resources to vaccinate their people.

US President Joe Biden responded to the statement by declaring Covid-19 over for the United States but, unfortunately for him, it didn’t quite resonate.

Sure, people – and not only Americans – are sick and tired of Covid-19; most of the world wants to move on. But the end of the pandemic can’t be manifested just because the American president says so.

At the very least, the chaotically ordered mess of microscopic nucleo-envelope-spike proteins and fatty acid that makes up the coronavirus doesn’t respond to the English language, and my guess is that it probably can’t hear anyway. It’s not just semantics.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2021, has said the end of the pandemic is in sight. Photo: AP

Meanwhile, Hong Kong responded to the news with people in private and public sectors calling for the relaxing of stringent Covid-19 measures, and the government delivered – first, axing hotel quarantine and then relaxing the maximum dining capacity per table at restaurants.

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