‘Unprepared and disorganised’: where did Hong Kong government go wrong in its fight against fifth wave of coronavirus?

Name: ‘Stealth Omicron’: How dangerous is the pandemic’s new highly infectious strain of Covid-19?
Uploaded: 2022-03-10T23:30:33.000Z
Duration: 6 min 21 s
Description: ‘Stealth Omicron’: How dangerous is the pandemic’s new highly infectious strain of Covid-19?

Shift over universal screening is only the latest in a couple of policy U-turns in the government’s fight against the worsening fifth wave

Academics say government’s reactive mode is only further undermining its credibility, forcing trust levels to dip even lower among the public

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Speculation about a lockdown for universal Covid-19 testing sparked a wave of panic buying in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lilian Cheng

Published: 7:30am, 11 Mar 2022Updated: 5:16pm, 11 Mar 2022

After Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor declared on Wednesday universal mass testing was no longer a top priority, many Hongkongers were left staring balefully at their overstuffed freezers and medicine chests and towers of cup noodles.

It was less than two weeks ago when a bout of panic buying prompted residents to empty out shelves of supermarkets and pharmacies of such items. The trigger: a remark by health minister Sophia Chan Siu-chee that a large-scale lockdown was possible and that government departments were preparing for a citywide testing exercise for Covid-19.

Days before that, Lam said such screening could be conducted over three rounds of testing in March. Schools, which were to be the venue for such a screening scheme, were then ordered closed.

But on Wednesday, after two weeks of not facing the media, Lam did a U-turn, saying her pandemic strategy was now about “reducing deaths, severe symptoms and infections”, adopting wholesale the recommendations of mainland Chinese officials, including visiting top epidemiologist Liang Wannian.

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‘Stealth Omicron’: How dangerous is the pandemic’s new highly infectious strain of Covid-19?

The move meant an immediate setting up of designated hospitals for Covid-19 patients, provision for more community isolation and temporary care facilities, a clear vaccination timetable for elderly people and enlisting private hospitals.

Han Zheng, the state leader overseeing Hong Kong affairs, had also given similar advice on minimising deaths and severe infections, when he recently urged for stronger and more decisive leadership in the health crisis.