Government Flip-Flops in Virus Fight

Scenes like this prompted the government to make a U-turn

The Hong Kong government can't seem to make up its mind on how to fight the coronavirus pandemic. It seems to think half-hearted measures are the way to go, and blames outbreaks on people not wearing masks, when it is because some 290,000 people have been exempted from quarantine since February and have spread the virus into the local community.

And now the government has completely flip-flopped on its latest regulation to stop all dining in restaurants after numerous complaints and media coverage of blue-collar workers forced to eat outside in the heat and rain. The pro-establishment lawmakers even protested, fearing this would affect their election chances in September.

Chui (in the middle) was in the hot seat today

Starting from tomorrow people can eat breakfast and lunch inside restaurants, with maximum two per table and 50 percent capacity.

Why this quick U-turn from some media coverage and complaints, when last summer some 2 million people peacefully protested against the extradition bill and were ignored by the government?

At this afternoon's regular media briefing on the coronavirus situation, the Undersecretary for Health Chui Tak-yi was grilled by reporters about this sudden change in decision, even when Hong Kong reported a new record high of 149 cases.

Chui kept saying over and over that the government saw the situation, understood that it was difficult for workers to not have a place to eat lunch and so the decision was made to reverse the ban on dining in restaurants.

Restaurants are back to serving breakfast, lunch

But what about concerns about catching the virus when dining in restaurants because people are not wearing masks? He repeated his answer.

Reporters asked if the government would apologize, and how did he feel about the picture of the middle-aged man kneeling to eat his lunch? Again Chui would not be baited and repeated the above reply over and over.

However the government's decision did not add up at all, considering the record number of cases.

And now restaurants are scrambling again to re-open tomorrow. The government, as I said before, has no idea what it's like the run a restaurant. Some had decided to shut for the week, while others ordered less ingredients thinking business would be slow.

Restaurateurs can't even get a break in this city.

Some people just want the government to bite the bullet and put the city under lockdown for two weeks and get it over with to seriously control the virus. Only allow people to go out once a day for a certain period of time to buy necessities and that's it.

Tony Chung was arrested last night for secession

While we will all go crazy, this tough measure would at least stop the chain of local infections and give the healthcare system a chance to focus on its current batch of patients instead of having to find band-aid solutions to the overwhelming number of cases.

Meanwhile the government has no problem determining it has to arrest four young people from the ages of 16 to 21 for inciting independence on a Facebook page, have legal academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting sacked from the University of Hong Kong, and disqualify 12 pan-democratic candidates from running in September's Legislative Council Elections. And this is just this week alone.

And yet it can't decide to take a tough stand on a virus.

The government's battle cry, "Together, we fight the virus!" gets hollower by the day.