Testing, Testing, Testing - But what is the end game?

"Where is the hope in anything Lam has given us?"

The image of Carrie Lam genuflecting as she greets a Mainland medical team as it arrives tells a story. Despite claiming weeks ago that the government had prepared for the worst-case Covid scenario, the truth is now hitting home. 

Lam dropped the ball and must now rely on the prowess of Mainland experts, with their massive resources, to get us out of the dark Covid tunnel. 

As Covid cases continue to increase, a team based in a Shenzhen villa is now directing action, while Lam looks like the highest-paid messenger on the planet. Despite weeks ago rejecting mass-testing on many grounds, she performed another Carrie 'flip and twist'. We should have entered her in the Winter Olympics freestyle skiing, given her prowess.

The plan is to test everyone in March — three times — and quarantine the infected to curtail the unknown transmissions in the community. At first glance, this is a sound and bold plan that could work, assuming you have enough quarantine facilities. Hence the scramble is to build and identify existing facilities to hold the infected. 

Yet, there are many other vital caveats, any one of which could derail or undermine this wide-reaching effort. So, as always, the devil is in the detail. 

Having people mix at testing centres could make these nodes of potential infection. Also, sending people home to await the result of the tests increases the transmission risk in the wider community, especially as many folks opted to minimise their movements. So what is the risk as they exit their self-imposed bubbles to take public transport to testing venues? 

And how many positive cases does the government expect? Getting a handle on that figure is vital. Plus, do we need to quarantine everybody? 

This point circles back to the issue of having enough capacity in quarantine centres. Because if people wait for days at home, the virus will spread in tiny Hong Kong apartments and vertically in tower blocks. 

Asking citizens to maintain a one-meter separation and take their meals facing a wall demonstrates staggering blindness to reality. Granted, such recommendations may work in the large flats occupied by senior civil servants, but not in the shoe-boxes the majority get to call home.

The challenges also include policies that have separated mothers from babies and young children. Unless the government can handle such matters compassionately, it will suffer further adverse criticism. The Expat community is very vocal in this regard, although all sectors of society feel the impact. 

Meanwhile, the awful treatment of our domestic helpers hasn't gone unnoticed in the international media. Yet, throughout this crisis, the government sought to punish this most vulnerable section of our community for infringements while failing to provide them with any help. 

There are already signs that some sectors have had enough and that people are voting with their feet. Departures are up as people head overseas or to the Mainland. The mood is pessimistic. Reports of attempted suicides in the Pennys Bay Centre indicate the stress caused by these measures. 

The blame for much of this must rest with Lam. On Tuesday, in a rambling press conference, she shotgunned us with irrelevant details going through the history of Covid in Hong Kong. She drowned her audience in trivia while salient points were unasserted, as Lam failed to deliver punchy messages.

During the 2019 civil unrest, Lam proved a PR shambles with her poor messaging — remember when is a riot not a riot? Unfortunately, it looks like she's learned nothing. None of this is difficult; get back to the basics by delivering a couple of key messages; we will test everyone three times, we need to protect the old and young, and the community must act together. Then present a semblance of an exit strategy, with some hope there. 

Instead, we saw the perfect synergy of incompetence at the press conference, a hopeless politician rabbiting on with vast dollops of details delivered without conviction. Then, the unfortunate children of the pen, who constitute journalists here, asked, "Will the transfer of human cells to the Mainland mean they have our DNA?". The inference was that China would conduct some sinister tracing of all Hong Kong citizens or clone us. Serious??

What is more, the sudden appearance of Mainland medical staff has the local medics nose well out of joint. Doctors here fought hard to keep Mainland professionals out of Hong Kong, often on spurious grounds. Now that Mainland teams are here to show their professionalism matches that of Hong Kong medical staff, the cat is out of the bag. As a result, local doctors may see their lucrative monopolies potentially disappearing. That must hurt.

My last points are these: what is the end game? I've complied with the government's diktats, got my shots, minimised contacts and gone along with your policies. If this mass testing fails, what comes next — a lock-down? I ask because that appears to be the path we are on. Is that the next move, having wasted millions on testing, testing and testing? 

Also, where is the rosy-glowing light at the end of the tunnel? Where is the hope in anything Lam has given us? Because it looks like the vaccinated, who are at little risk, are being punished, while the unvaccinated die — 50 today!

Carrie portrayed the fight against Covid as a war. Fair enough! Then tells us what victory looks like and when it may appear.