Chief Executive Carrie Lam

Having gone through a turbulent time in early March and seen the arrival of dawn in April, the fifth wave of the epidemic was under control in May with the daily number of cases tested positive hovering between 200 and 300. Nonetheless, to create favourable conditions for quarantine-free travel with the Mainland, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been steadfastly implementing the strategy of preventing the importation of cases and the resurgence of domestic infections and striving to reduce deaths, severe cases and infections, while encouraging members of the public to receive appropriate COVID-19 vaccine doses in a timely manner to build a stronger city-wide protection barrier against the virus. The community can thus be enabled to move steadily forward along a more promising path to normalcy.

Epidemic development

Over the past few weeks, the daily reported number of cases tested positive remained at a low but stagnant level. Neither did the figure continue to drop drastically, nor did it rise considerably despite some infection clusters found. For our peace of mind, generally low-level figures were observed in May in other monitoring indicators, including the viral load in sewage surveillance tests, the percentage of positive cases found in restriction-testing declaration operations and the percentage of positive cases from tests conducted at the community level, as well as the real-time effective reproductive number for local cases and COVID-19 point-prevalence rate released by the School of Public Health under The University of Hong Kong.

The drop in confirmed cases, coupled with the multi-tiered triage and treatment strategy in effect, has enabled the public healthcare system to resume its normal operation. The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases admitted to public hospitals significantly decreased from 1,339 on May 1 to 427 on May 29. Of the latter, eight were in serious condition and 13 were in critical condition (four thereof under intensive care).

Getting society back to normal

As the epidemic situation remains stable, and the COVID-19 vaccination rates of the first and second doses have reached 92% and 86.9% respectively with the risk of severe or death cases effectively reduced among the infected, the Hong Kong SAR Government has relaunched social and economic activities on various fronts in an orderly manner along the path to normalcy as announced in March 21 and in response to the expectations from various sectors of society. It is particularly gratifying to see that all students city-wide have resumed face-to-face classes at school; the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination this year has been conducted successfully; sports premises have been reopened; all scheduled premises subject to regulation have resumed business; and the catering and retail sectors have reaped a long-awaited blooming business. As regards visitors’ immigration, further to lifting the flight ban on nine countries in April to allow Hong Kong residents (HKRs) from overseas to enter Hong Kong, the Hong Kong SAR Government expanded the scope to non-HKRs with effect from May 1 alongside suitable adjustments made to the route-specific flight suspension mechanism. With effect from May 9, the Hong Kong SAR Government imposed an additional rapid antigen test (RAT) requirement on test-and-hold at the airport to strengthen the testing arrangement for inbound passengers on the one hand, while shortening their waiting time at the airport to enhance the process of closed-loop management from the airport to designated quarantine hotels on the other.

Implementing third stage of vaccine pass as planned

It has been over 450 days since the launch of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme by the Hong Kong SAR Government. No shortage of the two COVID-19 vaccines for the people of Hong Kong has ever occurred, while a growing number of channels for vaccination has been provided to bring them more convenience. At present, as many as 100,000 doses can be administered daily, which can well meet demand. While the first- and second-dose vaccination rates of Hong Kong’s population are satisfactory, the third-dose one has just exceeded 50% and needs to be boosted further. With the second stage of the vaccine pass coming into effect on April 30, the Hong Kong SAR Government will implement the third stage from May 31 onwards as planned. People will be then generally required to have received three doses before they can enter a series of premises subject to regulation.

In order to strengthen the immune barrier for hospitals and public healthcare facilities, protect members of the public using public healthcare services (especially the elderly and chronic patients) and further encourage them to get vaccinated, the vaccine pass arrangement will be implemented by administrative means in designated healthcare premises under the purview of the Food & Health Bureau, the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority (HA) (such as specialist out-patient clinics of HA, Student Health Service Centres and Special Assessment Centres, District Health Centres) with effect from June 13.

Other major anti-epidemic and related measures and events are tabulated below in the chronological order:

Supporting enterprises and safeguarding jobs

The Hong Kong SAR Government announced in May that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February to April this year stood at 5.4%, representing a 0.4 percentage point increase as compared with the preceding three-month period. Nonetheless, the subsiding local epidemic situation and progressive relaxation of social distancing measures, together with the 2022 Employment Support Scheme (2022 ESS) and new round of electronic consumption vouchers of $10,000 each to eligible citizens as announced in the Government Budget this year, would expectedly give a boost to the business of various sectors by and large. It is hoped that enterprises could regain vitality and retain staff or even hire more, improving the business sentiment and promoting the economic rebound.

Earlier on, the Hong Kong SAR Government rolled out the fifth and sixth rounds of the Anti-epidemic Fund to provide some financial relief to the enterprises and practitioners of various trades affected directly or indirectly by the fifth wave of the epidemic, as well as to the frontline personnel having contributed to anti-epidemic efforts such as cleansing workers. As at May 25, over $14 billion was disbursed. The 2022 ESS, which comes with a wider coverage, met with overwhelming response. By the deadline of May 12, applications from 176,000 employers (involving about 1.66 million employees) and 119,000 self-employed persons were received. They are being processed in batches. As at May 25, the wage subsidies of May were approved for 77,000 employers, involving $5.2 billion. These employers had committed to employ about 665,000 people in May; and a one-off subsidy of $8,000 was approved for about 64,000 self-employed persons, involving over $0.5 billion.

Moving steadily forward along path to normalcy

The COVID-19 epidemic has been raging across the globe for nearly two and a half years. Hong Kong has not been spared and has met with five waves of the epidemic, of which the latest one triggered by the highly transmissible Omicron mutant strain has overwhelmed our anti-epidemic capacity. While progressing along the path to normalcy, we should feel gratified, and most grateful, for the timely assistance from the central government and full co-operation by society at large. This is the 28^th monthly report on our anti-epidemic efforts, also the last one in a row, issued by me as the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR. I wish Hong Kong steady strides continuously along the hardearned path to normalcy, resuming cross-boundary people flows in an orderly manner early and reinvigorating the status as Asia’s world city connecting East and West, and new heights scaled therewith under “one country, two systems”.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam issued this article titled Moving Steadily Forward Along Path to Normalcy Amid Stabilised COVID-19 Epidemic on May 30.