Hong Kong : “Bleak Prospects”

Click to enlarge and clarify. Online here

David Dodwell is a regular and informed commenter, Hong Kong resident. And I’ve often disagreed with his views. But in the above, fellow HK resident me says, he’s got it pretty right. Hong Kong has been grievously hurt by the pandemic, “Hong Kong sits among the most devastated “, worse than our arch rival Singapore. 

An important point David doesn’t mention: that this “devastation”, our “bleak prospects” are largely self-inflicted. When it became clear that the mainland was going to keep on keeping on with its Zero Covid policy, we should have untethered ourselves from it. We could have opened up to the outside world while keeping the border closed with the mainland.

This is not hindsight. Many people, myself included, said so at the time, two years ago at least. We could have followed policies of “focused protection” instead of shutting everyone down and smashing the economy. That is the policy recommended by Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya  et.al. in the Barrington Declaration. (Decisively — shockingly and scandalously in my view — shut down by Collins and Fauci, with no reasons given).

Our economic woes — 3.5% drop in GNP, rising unemployment, devastated travel and industry  — are self inflicted. For no net benefit health wise.