HONG KONG — Air! Fresh air! I suck it into my lungs through my pale blue surgical mask until my diaphragm hurts. I can feel my capillaries filling up with oxygen. My respiratory system kicks into overdrive. My heart starts racing. I feel alive again.
The people rushing past the man gasping for air on Central’s congested Queen’s Rd., look at me with curiosity — some with apprehension.
However, they haven’t been confined to a hotel room for the past 14 days, like I have. They haven’t had to breath stale, manufactured air for two weeks. They haven’t been forced to look at the world through locked windows.
That’s the price Hong Kong’s government exacted from foreign travellers who wished to visit Asia’s most dynamic city during the pandemic. The fully vaccinated, like me, were quarantined for 14 days. The unvaccinated, 21 days.
Those draconian measures have cost Hong Kong’s tourism industry dearly. With no foreign tourists arriving or locals leaving on holiday, thousands in the travel sector here have lost their jobs. Many permanently. Almost 100 travel agencies have shuttered their doors. The remainder are in dire financial straits. The territory’s flagship air carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, and low-cost Hong Kong Airlines are teetering on the brink of insolvency.
So, one might ask, did Hong Kong go too far? Was its drastic reaction to the pandemic worth so many travel businesses closing and so many employees losing their jobs?
Truth be told, yes!
In fact, based on statistics, Hong Kong’s COVID response should have been used as a model for the rest of the world.
Facts bear that out.
For instance, during my recent month-long visit in August, just a handful of COVID cases were reported in Hong Kong while Ontario was reporting about 200 infections daily over that same period.
Overall, Hong Kong, with a population of 7.5 million, reported 11,997 COVID cases up until August, 2021, and just 212 deaths overall.
Compare that to Canadian jurisdictions with similar populations, like British Columbia (pop. 5.1 million), which has reported over 151,000 cases and more than 1,770 deaths to date.
Instead of following Hong Kong’s lead, Canada allowed travellers to come and go as they pleased in the early months of the pandemic and only saw a drop in cases and deaths when they banned ALL flights from COVID hotspots.
When the Trudeau government finally placed a three-day hotel quarantine on arriving travellers, many balked — some opted to pay a hefty fine instead of staying in an airport hotel until a negative COVID test was returned.
Hong Kong didn’t give arriving travellers a choice. And because they didn’t, they were able to get COVID under control faster than anyone else and have kept it at bay for the best part of 2021.
As a result, the city’s restaurants and retail stores have been fully functional for months now and the only requirement for locals is to wear a mask when in public.
Of course, Hong Kong has had plenty of experience with killer viruses. In 1997, Bird Flu (the H5N1 virus) struck this city, followed in 2003 by an outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
So, densely populated Hong Kong was ready for COVID when it struck and reacted accordingly.
Kudos to Hong Kong for showing the rest of us the way — too bad countries like Canada didn’t follow their lead.