Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has not closed the region’s border with mainland China, even as her advisers press her to shut them down fast in order to fight the coronavirus.
“Substantial, draconian measures limiting population mobility should be taken immediately,” Gabriel Leung, dean of medicine at Hong Kong University and a health adviser to the local government, said Monday. “We have to be prepared that this particular epidemic may be about to become a global epidemic.”
Leung estimated that more than 25,600 people in Wuhan, the mainland Chinese city where the outbreak originated, are showing symptoms of infection, a figure that could double over the next week. Mainland authorities have concluded that the virus can be transmitted between humans even if there are no apparent symptoms of sickness, stoking cries to close Hong Kong’s border with the mainland.
“A complete ban is now inevitable and logical, as the virus has gone everywhere in China now,” Ivan Law Cheuk-yiu, vice chairman of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, said on Sunday.
The medical question comes at a fraught moment for Hong Kong relations with mainland China, as the semi-autonomous city was wracked by protests throughout 2019. The protests were sparked by a proposal to allow extradition from Hong Kong to China and evolved into broader political turmoil. Lam, who has been criticized throughout the political crisis for remaining too close with Beijing, has described a border closure as “inappropriate and impractical.”
[Also read: State Department urges Americans to ‘reconsider travel’ to China amid coronavirus outbreak]
Hong Kong authorities have decided to bar people who live in Wuhan or the Hubei province around the city, but Lam’s team has acknowledged it will be difficult to enforce.
“This [measure] is, of course, not going to be 100% effective,” Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said. “We urge those who enter Hong Kong to make declarations honestly.”
Members of Hong Kong’s medical establishment are searching for tactics that might win the approval of local and mainland authorities.
“We would like to see enhanced border controls on the mainland side, too, so they can stop people with fever or other symptoms coming to Hong Kong,” Dr. Arisina Ma Chung-yee, president of another medical association, suggested. “This may be more politically acceptable than a blanket ban.”
Leung, the Hong Kong University official, urged Lam to be more aggressive.
“So, the question is not whether or not to do more,” he said. “Yes, we must do more. The question really is, ‘How can we make sure that it is feasible, implementable, and enforceable?’”
