Covid-19 Priorities in China, Hong Kong

Firefighter getting a PCR test, with wildfires burning nearby

Imagine you're a firefighter in Chongqing, Sichuan province, and there are wildfires just outside the city in the mountains.

So you and your fire brigade rush to the area -- only to be forced to take PCR tests for Covid-19 first.

Even though the forests are burning in the distance since August 2 caused by the heatwave there, fighting the pandemic takes priority.

One would think being outside and wearing oxygen masks there would not be the need to be tested for Covid-19.

But that's China's zero-Covid policy.

Lo scaremongering the public in Hong Kong

While Hong Kong doesn't have wildfires, its authorities are trying to scaremonger its residents into staying at home and locking themselves in their own homes until the pandemic is over.

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau gave such a warning in yesterday's press conference. 

"We cannot promise that there may not be other social-distancing measures. In fact if you look at the whole world, there are different emerging diseases coming up, from SARS to the avian flu, we have different Ebola viruses, we have different emerging diseases coming up, and then this Covid came out two and a half years ago. Nobody would imagine it would stay for so long. and now we also have the monkey pox," he says, piling on a laundry list of viruses. 

"So there is no reason that the government can promise that we would not introduce other measures to control emerging infectious diseases," he continues. 

"Covid is still mutating, we are seeing new mutants coming up and in case there is a more virulent Covid coming up, mutant coming up, we cannot guarantee there will not be other social-distancing measures to control the pandemic or a new emerging disease."

If you are someone who doesn't have friends overseas telling you the Omicron strain is not that severe if as long as you are vaccinated, or if you don't read the news reports from other countries explaining the mutated virus is more transmissible but less severe -- you would be so terrified of even opening your door and going outside your home.

Then on top of that 30 percent of Hong Kong's elderly population over 80 have not even been vaccinated. Lo admitted as much. 

"If they contract Covid, the mortality rate is in the region of 16 percent. And we have to learn from history, in the fifth wave, we do suffer a serious situation with a high mortality of over 9,000 deaths. And the whole public health system is overworked," he says. 

"So I would urge you -- anyone who said that we can easily lift with the virus now as other countries I would submit I cannot agree with that as a responsible government we have to protect the health of our people, even though they are elderly, every life matters."

One can surmise that Lo is saying the entire Hong Kong population is being held hostage by these elderly people who refuse to get jabbed. 

What a responsible and caring government... one that is willing to slash and burn its own economy, its next generation and its future by continuing to shut Hong Kong down for the sake of the elderly.

It's a message not many people aren't going to understand and accept...