What are we to make of this? Here in Hong Kong the government started mass testing for Covid, last Monday. Today they report that in 128,000 tests they found 6 positive tests for Covid, and of those four had had the disease earlier and were carrying f some leftover viral load.
What does this mean? On the one hand it’s a very small number and if projected to the entire population of 7.2 million would mean there are around 338 people infected, or with leftover viral load. Which begs the obvious question as to whether continued lockdowns are needed. Then again, pro lockdown people may claim that it’s the very fact of lockdown that has brought the figures so low. To which the next response is: no they didn’t. What controlled the recent outbreak was recognising that they came largely from incoming seafarers and aircrew, which were tracked and traced. For large areas there were no viruses to lock against. And it remains the case that there is no correlation between lockdown stringency and deaths per million, based in Oxford and Yale university figures.
Whatever, there is now little need to keep lockdown, unless complete eradication is the aim. And I fear that it is, despite it being explicitly stated by experts early in that that was impossible. We will have further cases. We need to protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us get in with work and play.
Follow the science.
