Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3081341/hong-kong-coronavirus-curve-flattens-schools-must-reopen-life
Comment/ Letters

As Hong Kong coronavirus curve flattens, schools must reopen for life to return to normal

  • A large part of the Hong Kong workforce can’t really return to work properly until the children are able to go back to school
Handstands draw a curious glance at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park in Sai Ying Pun on April 14. Photo: Nora Tam

I refer to Peter Kammerer's article of April 21 (“Hongkongers must now show agility befitting the Year of the Rat”), and couldn’t agree more.

One point Mr Kammerer didn’t address (perhaps deliberately so), is the return to school. The fact is, a large part of the Hong Kong workforce can’t really return to work properly until students are able to go back to school.

The reality of home learning for a lot of us – especially those with younger kids who are less self-sufficient and independent – is that home learning requires almost 100 per cent supervision for a large part of the working day. In many cases, helper supervision is no substitute for parental supervision.

So, the upshot is that while local business and industry may be able to go back to work, the reality is that a lot of us will have to continue working from home outside school hours and not really be in a position to spend when local businesses and industry open up.

There is talk of a phased return when schools do go back, with older kids going back first; however, the reverse would almost make more sense, with the kids who require more supervision to go back before older kids.

Or, if we have to wait until there are 28 days with zero infections, then a phased return doesn’t even make sense, because surely the chain of transmission should have been broken.

I realise this doesn’t address the issue of the 30,000 Chinese kids who commute across the border every day, but the reality is, until schools reopen, business productivity cannot return to anything like normal.

Nicole McMahon, Pok Fu Lam

Covid-19 may be nature’s way of restoring balance

Referring to “World needs more tech and science, not less” (April 21), I find Professor Yeomin Yoon’s opinion that life on our planet needs humans to survive rather eccentric.

Nature promotes diversity and progress by a fundamental response to the environment to achieve balance – the “Way” of the Tao. Conversely, technologically invasive homo sapiens destroy natural habitats and species in the inexorable materialistic quest for “more” – while only creating more anger, more greed, more envy and more vanity. Our arrogance is astounding.

It may be that the coronavirus is a natural agent to rectify the huge imbalance that we have created. Professor Yoon asks us to “imagine nature without the human species”. That I can, but I cannot imagine the human species without nature.

Christian Rogers, Wan Chai