Health Secretary says Technology to Protect HK from Fifth Wave

Chan says more needs to be done to prepare for fifth wave

It is quite surprising for Secretary for Health Sophia Chan Siu-mee to admit that Hong Kong is not ready for the possible fifth wave in the coronavirus pandemic, and that the answer is more technology, when it really should be injecting more vaccines in arms, especially those of the elderly.

She said made this assessment during the Asia Summit on Global Health today, as the government is jumping through the necessary hoops to be able to open the border with the mainland.

In fact Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu is in Shenzhen now with an official delegation to have high-level talks with Chinese counterparts about a launch date and the circumstances under which the arrangement would be suspended.

Tracing app needs to be used more widely 

Meanwhile the government is stepping up enforcement of everyone in the city using the Leave Home Safe app, making it mandatory in all restaurants and leisure venues, such as cinemas and fitness centres from December 9, in addition to all government buildings including wet markets, concert venues and libraries. As if more people weren't running out to buy burner phones. 

The government hopes that by having more people using the technology, Beijing will be satisfied enough to reopen the border sooner. A colleague speculated China would say our Leave Home Safe app wasn't good enough and force Hong Kong to use its health code app instead...

During the summit Chan said to prepare for the upcoming fifth wave -- supposedly when mainlanders can come down to Hong Kong in droves -- the city needed to use technology to build a data dashboard to monitor Covid-19 cases to conduct sewage surveillance to track down suspected cases.

"Leveraging on all this technology is important. But is it enough? I don't think it is enough," Chan said.

Lee now in Shenzhen talking to Chinese officials

"There are many, many areas that we need to further digitalise, in terms of contract tracing, in terms of the databases we are putting together, the health code that we are developing if we are to resume cross-border travel with the mainland. All these things that we need to continue to push and work on."

It sounds like making busy work for people, which is a very mainland style of doing things, that is hardly efficient. Surely a database of sewage spots regarding positive cases have been recorded and mapped already by epidemiologists. So what more needs to be done? We are doing everything we can already.

However Chan admitted that while Hong Kong's overall vaccination rate is at 70 percent, fewer than one in five residents aged 80 or above have received at least one shot. About 45 percent of those in their seventies have received at least one jab. 

"There is still a big margin for us to [close] in order to keep our elderly safe in the community," Chan said.

Then how about a big drive to get vaccines in people's arms?! Seems pretty logical, no? Or is the government too scared to upset its biggest constituency, who are pro-Beijing and yet believe in all the conspiracy theories?

Higher elderly population needs to be vaccinated

If the vaccination rate for the elderly doesn't see a significant uptick, Hong Kong is going to continue to flounder and more expats are going to leave as well as foreign companies who have had enough. 

In the meantime it's important to mark today being the second anniversary of the 2019 District Council elections when an unprecedented 17 out of 18 districts voted for pro-democracy candidates after months of protests that started off peaceful and became more violent. 

And yet the government didn't heed the voters' wishes and instead dismantled everything they had hoped and believed in as the behest of Beijing.

It was the last time Hongkongers exercised true democracy, and the last time the city would be the way we remembered it.