Everyone has a responsibility to resist the epidemic.

01 perspective

Written by: Comment Editor

2020-02-06 16:35

The Sham Shui Po District Council passed a motion on Wednesday (February 5) to oppose the requisition of the Mobil Crest Hill House as a quarantine camp for people suspected of contracting new pneumonia. Of course, the government must consider whether it will pose a health threat to nearby residents when selecting the site as a quarantine center. However, experts such as Yuan Guoyong, professor of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, pointed out that the Cui Ya Shan Fang is far away from the residential houses and acts as an isolation camp. People will not pose a threat, so we can see that the Cui Ya Shan Fang is a reasonable choice. Regardless of whether the mainstream of the people ’s sentiment really opposes the requisition of Cui Ya Shan Fang, when Hong Kong society as a whole faces the threat of epidemics, district councillors, as representatives, should take the responsibility to safeguard social interests, tell the voters the scientific truth and help them make the right decisions instead of Blindly led away by populist emotions. The outbreak is imminent. Is it necessary to manipulate politics at such a critical moment?

The Cui Ya Shan Fang is far away from the dwellings and does not pose a threat to the residents of this area. This is an objective fact agreed by many parties. If the District Councils oppose just because of public opinion, then they are politicians who follow the populist trend. They lack the judgement that representatives should have, and they do not think from the perspective of real needs and the whole society.

Leaving aside the pretext of public opinion, the district board pointed out that the biggest reason for the objection was that the government had not consulted the district board before making the decision. The lack of transparency in government information is of course a problem. However, the epidemic situation is changing rapidly. When officials realize the problem and make up for it, lawmakers should also prioritize and support the government to quickly establish a more complete epidemic prevention system and strictly control the risk of community outbreaks. The disease is no good at all. As Yuan Guoyong pointed out, if there is not enough isolation measures, the only way is to isolate them at home. The difficulty and risk of centralized isolation and decentralized home isolation monitoring can be judged with common sense. Crisis needs a crisis management model. There are so many international examples, so there is no need to repeat them.

Some opponents point out that there are many alternatives to Cui Ya Shan Fang, which is indeed good. But these proposals are not in themselves a valid reason to oppose the use of the Cui Ya Shan Fang as the quarantine center. One is that since the Cui Ya Shan Fang is both reasonable and ready, why not? Second, with the increasing number of local cases and the government's launch of more epidemic prevention measures, the Cui Ya Shan Fang is just one of them. If the epidemic continues, more facilities will naturally be requisitioned.

Xu Deyi, deputy director of the Food and Health Bureau, pointed out that the government currently has three quarantine centres with a total of 97 units, of which 80 are already in use. Of course, the public can question why the government has not formulated comprehensive quarantine and quarantine facilities requisition guidelines and checklists after experiencing SARS, so as not to cause controversy when it is needed, or review how to improve the mechanism afterwards. However, the epidemic is very serious now, so why do district boards need to deliberately make things difficult?

The increasing demand for isolated space should explore the use of military land, cruise ships

Three deficiencies in the official interactive map of the new pneumonia

[Wuhan Pneumonia] Community spreads gimmicks to guard against "Amoy 2.0"

Wuhan Pneumonia 01 Viewpoint