No Lockdown, but No Priority of Vaccines Either

Lee (centre) flanked by senior ministers this evening

When it was announced before 8pm that Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu would be holding a press conference at 9pm, it sounded terribly serious. People on social media began speculating if it was to announce a lockdown. 

Earlier in the day my unvaccinated relatives texted me to suggest that I stock up on pasta and noodles as there was the possibility of a lockdown. I said it was logistically impossible for that to happen, but they were on their way out to buy more food.

Lee said no lockdown, but more help from China

They already have two fridges packed with food and lots of pasta, tissue paper, toilet paper to last them over a month. But they had to get more food...

In the wet market and the supermarket there wasn't much of a panic, people buying what they needed, no shelves were cleared out, and yes there were still lots of vegetables.

It has been announced that Lee along with the secretaries for health, transport, mainland affairs and security would be going to Shenzhen to meet with mainland officials to see how they could clamp down on the fifth wave, which logged a record 1,514 cases, five of which were imported. There are another 1,500 preliminary positive.

So the 9pm press conference ended up not being an announcement about a lockdown, but instead a reiteration of the mainland's support for Hong Kong, and supplying help in genetic testing, more rapid antigen tests, more isolation facilities and more PPE for medical workers. 

There will also now be a joint Hong Kong-mainland expert committee to figure out the best way forward for the city. 

There was talk of getting more testing assistance

When asked by reporters why a lockdown was not considered, Lee said the latest social-distancing measures would be good enough, and with assistance from the mainland, a lockdown was not necessary at this time.

However, this is what medical experts had called for in order to reach zero Covid, but apparently the suggestion caused a lot of pushback, concerned it would cause panic. 

Like my relatives... who now have even more food... 

One reporter asked what the vaccination strategy would be going forward, but Lee skirted the question, which demonstrates how much of a priority getting the population inoculated, particularly the elderly is.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has said she has set the target of 90 percent vaccinated... is Hong Kong anywhere near that? 

As of today 75.75 percent have had at least one jab, 67.34 per cent are fully vaccinated, only 16.33 percent have had their booster.

But still the most vulnerable, those in the 70s and up are still not vaccinated, whereas those 40-49 are 94 percent jabbed.

More tests for residents to endure in fifth wave

With Lee not stressing tonight the importance of getting vaccinated and having a strategy of getting people jabbed then Hong Kong will continue to be in this situation of exponential cases and not enough being done about it.

It just reflects the weakness of the Lam administration in not being able to be tough with getting its residents inoculated and yet still pushing for "zero-Covid" when over 1,500 cases a day is making this goal practically impossible to reach.