Lu Chongmao, director of the Medical and Health Bureau, attended a press conference on the epidemic on Monday (11th), and elaborated on the "safe travel" real-name system and health code recommendations.
According to his plan, the "safe travel" of those who have been issued an isolation order or confirmed will be converted to a red code, and those who enter quarantine will be converted to a yellow code, both of which are prohibited from entering high-risk and mask-removing places.
Considering that the current epidemic situation in Hong Kong is heating up, and customs clearance with the mainland and the international community is urgent, it is a good thing to have a more accurate epidemic prevention system.
The Secretary only said that the faster the coding system, the better, but there is still no actual date. The government should not delay and miss the opportunity to control the epidemic.
Lu Chongmao explained that there are currently laws requiring forced inspection and isolation, but it fails to ensure that everyone complies, resulting in a loophole in spreading the virus.
Furthermore, in order to balance the demands of relaxing and shortening hotel quarantine and preventing imported risks, the government must prevent the spread of viruses during home quarantine for inbound travelers.
He believes that it is unfair that people who have been in high-risk areas can go everywhere, and the real-name system and the establishment of health codes can help to accurately fight the epidemic and humanized quarantine, identify high-risk people, and facilitate law enforcement.
In addition, home quarantined persons must also wear electronic wristbands from this Friday (15th).
Lu Chongmao said that he would consider referring to the practices of the mainland and Macau and add a health code system with red, yellow and green codes. Restrictions." (file photo)
The previous government took a long way to make up for the epidemic as soon as possible
Since the launch of "Safe Travel" at the end of last year, it has not been able to prevent the leakage of cases, and the "Mochizukilou" incident is one example.
Later, the government launched the vaccine pass. Xue Yongheng, the former director of the Bureau of Innovation and Technology, once said that the pass is sufficient to achieve the real-name tracking goal, and the real-name system will not be implemented in "Travel with Peace of Mind". Personal contact information, but may not always be able to contact the person concerned.
There was an outbreak in bars last month, and some customers failed to comply with the compulsory inspection announcement.
They were finally fined tickets and mandatory testing orders, but it has been a while since the outbreak of the epidemic, and the virus has had a chance to flow into the community with customers.
Going around in circles, the government has always been unavoidable to identify patients and high-risk individuals in the direction of the real-name system. Lu Chongmao's idea is only to make up for the lack of more than a year.
If the government had resolutely equipped "Safe Travel" with the real-name function, I believe it would have helped control the epidemic last year and at the beginning of this year's outbreak, and negotiated customs clearance with the mainland without many setbacks.
Set a specific customs clearance schedule to gain public support
Many citizens believe that the real-name system and health code are more restrictions on life, but these two measures are aimed at reducing the intersection of infected and high-risk people with non-infected people.
To make the public realize that the new measures are necessary and beneficial, the Government should link the two measures to the customs clearance schedule with the Mainland and other places.
At the press conference, Lu Chongmao suggested that overseas arrivals should replace some hotel quarantine days with home surveillance.
Since the government promotes the real-name system and the health code, it must maximize its utility and achieve customs clearance with domestic and foreign countries as soon as possible.
There are several display boards with QR codes for safe travel at the entrance of Langham Place for the convenience of citizens.
(Photo by Zheng Zifeng)
It is true that some members of the public are concerned that the government will misuse the personal data in Anxin Travel.
Recently, Henan government officials have changed the health codes of some village bank depositors to red codes. Although the relevant officials have been dismissed, demoted or warned, Hong Kong citizens are more or less wary of the establishment of the "Anxin" real-name system and health code, and they are worried about the abuse of officials. data.
In this regard, the Medical and Health Bureau, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner must monitor that data is stored properly and complies with independent third-party privacy impact assessments and the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.
The Macau government, which is separated by water, has implemented the health code system in May of the previous year. Except for a few short-term failures, it has generally operated smoothly so far.
Although the health code cannot completely stop the epidemic, it can at least help the government to demarcate the control area. The number of newly infected people found in recent rounds of national nucleic acid testing is being found in the control area including the Red Code Bureau. The number and proportion of interviews are on the decline.
The number of confirmed cases in Hong Kong continues to be high, the use of hospital beds is increasing day by day, and the new government has not lied down, adjusting the epidemic control methods and taking into account the return of customs clearance, which is worthy of recognition.
When the government officially rolls out new measures, citizens should cooperate more.
External defense input depends on the data. Internal non-proliferation must be prepared. China's biggest economic challenge is not the epidemic. The mainland's "7+3" is more necessary to clear customs and internal non-proliferation.