Local media is rife with speculation about Hong Kong leaning on the mainland to rein in the latest Covid-19 outbreak, with cases rising to record numbers since the start of the pandemic.
Over the last week, the government has severely tightened restrictions on just about every aspect of life in public and private spaces. Its health policies still stand in stark contrast to the situation on the ground, just as they did when Hong Kong had zero daily cases. The hope is that vaccination rates will climb, which is happening, but not fast enough to get ahead of rising cases. In addition, compulsory mass-testing has resulted in lines snaking around blocks for hours as thousands queue up or face a fine.
Meanwhile, four people from different households can still sit together in some restaurants. All in all, there is chaos, fatigue and fear.
As cases rose to more than 1,300 infections each day, compared with upwards of 7,400 in New York and 7,900 in London, all of Hong Kong’s vulnerabilities have been exposed. Testing capacity is severely constrained. When I connected with the health department last weekend, as new restrictions were going into place, they were still in the process of procuring tests. The exact cost of testing, while not discussed openly, is very high: In September 2020, it cost almost $70 million to test less than a quarter of the territory’s 7.5 million residents. Hospitals are overwhelmed, while a quarantine center for close contacts has been turned into one for asymptomatic patients. Talk of another isolation center built with China’s help emerged Friday. Deaths of the unvaccinated elderly — officials’ biggest fear — have ticked up.
It’s hard to see how any of this works to contain the outbreak. Locking down the city, as Beijing did in Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic, has been recommended by a government advisor and discussed in the media. But going down that path would just serve to confirm the ham-handedness of the city’s Covid policy making.
When Beijing shut down the city of around 11 million people, for over 70 days, the costs were brutal. The health burden was estimated to be 4.5 billion yuan ($707.5 million) and the burden on residents’ mental health at 114.5 billion yuan. Direct economic losses from sectors like transport, food, and beverage were 21.6 billion yuan, while the monthly indirect economic losses of all industries were 36.4 billion yuan, according to an academic study. On a monthly basis, that’s economic losses of $27.8 billion. To be sure, the study also found that lives were saved, as was 30 billion yuan in medical costs.
For Hong Kong, a city of deep inequalities where gross domestic product fell even under relatively light restrictions in 2020, costs at this scale would inflict damage on the banking and finance sectors, batter businesses and destroy livelihoods.
In addition, the Wuhan approach was implemented in the early days when little was known about the disease. The aim was broadly to ensure the unknown virus wouldn’t spread rapidly across China and beyond the city’s borders. Now we have powerful data, evidence and experience. Ignoring that will be foolish.
If Hong Kong were to attempt this now, when various strains of Covid-19 are still spreading across both developing and developed economies, it would be misguided. This backward-looking approach is far from what a global financial center — or even China’s — should adopt. What’s more, one of the biggest risks to Hong Kong is a poorly executed lockdown and the ensuing damage to its reputation.
The case of the Chinese city of Xi’an shows how all this can go wrong. Videos of a pregnant woman who couldn’t get adequate care and lost her baby went viral and resulted in officials being fired. Food shortages (increasingly the case in Hong Kong) were rampant. Hong Kong’s large estate lockdowns have also shown how much misery is being inflicted on people — financially, socially and economically. The approach will prove short-termist, much like the policies of the last two years.
At this point in the pandemic, strict lockdowns won’t help rein in the outbreak. There are now many locally transmitted, untraceable cases. To hope that infection rates will reverse to close to nil is absurd, as the experience of several countries now show. “Given other countries/city state experiences, it seems likely that it’s now not possible to go back to a Zero Covid strategy, and over the next 6-8 weeks many Hong Kong'ers will be exposed to the virus,” analysts from Jefferies Group LLC wrote recently.
So where to now? Hong Kong needs to accept the reality that the city has thousands of infections. Properly and gently executed testing, home quarantining for mild cases and alleviating residents’ growing fear and resentment will go a long way. In addition, reducing the burden on the health system — one created by existing policies — would free up space for care for those that need it, and avert deaths.
Other concessions like loosening border requirements are also needed so the territory doesn’t find itself isolated when it needs resources most. It must allow more air travel and cargo to prepare for bringing in food, medical supplies, personnel and make it possible for residents to order at-home tests from overseas quickly — currently most pharmacies are out of stock. The list of small but effective measures is long. Now only if there was a willingness to act on it.
Bloomberg
