CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE Dear Members “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Thus spoke Yogi Berra, the American baseball player who was as famous for his malapropisms as he was for his brilliance on the field. “It’s like déjà vu all over again” was another famous Yogi-ism. I recalled both these pithy observations as I sat down to write this month’s magazine statement and find that I, like the rest of Hong Kong, am still obsessing about COVID. I look forward to the magazine statement that no longer needs to lead with a commentary on border and other restrictions. Perhaps we are making progress with the easing that was announced for 1st May but concerns are still very much “front-of-mind”. Today, as I write, it is true that the level of daily infection is (for Hong Kong, at least) high – at around 1,800 cases. However, the total number of patients in hospital amounts to 558 with somewhere between 60-90 being admitted on
a daily basis (and around the same number being discharged). Of those patients in hospital 12 are in a serious condition and 12 are in a critical condition. Only three are receiving intensive care. The Hospital Authority itself notes that the current level of hospitalisations has “not caused serious impact to the service of public hospitals”. The functioning operation of our healthcare system is not under threat. After a certain level of community immunity has been achieved – through a combination of vaccinations and past infections – the experts have held that social and border restrictions are only needed to protect the healthcare system. There comes a point when the balance of protecting lives over protecting livelihoods tips in favour of the latter. Anyone who has taken a tour of shopping centres and wet markets beyond Central can attest to the struggle of many shopkeepers and restaurateurs simply to get by. So why do we arrangements?
persist
with
our
At the Chamber, we have continued to for travel in and out of the SAR to be normal operating procedure in most world. We want home quarantine XXXXXXX
current
COVID
lobby, in particular, a lot more like the of the rest of the at least and no
02
