In an article published on April 17th in The
Lancet, one of the oldest and most highly regarded medical journals, a group of
scientists reported their findings on the impacts of a series of non-pharmaceutical
interventions against COVID-19 and influenza in Hong Kong[1].
The study revealed that “Influenza transmission declined
substantially after the implementation of social distancing measures and
changes in population behaviours in late January”. The studies also highlighted
that Covid-19 “might share some aspects of transmission dynamics with COVID-19”,
hinting that benefits in reducing transmissibility for one, would also impact
the other’s.
Interestingly, it also revealed that Hong Kongers expressed that they widely
lacked trust in the Hong Kong and mainland’s governments ability to handle the
crisis, were avoiding crowded places, used face-masks, washed their hands, and
avoided visiting the mainland. And all of these, as early as January 2020.
While Hong Kong had similar success in controlling Covid-19
as Taiwan and South-Korea, by implementing the same healthcare response
measures, and this, in spite of the Hong Kong government’s every attempts to
keep the borders open and discourage mask utilization, it faced a much larger
challenge doing so as it shares a land border with the mainland, and sees a
vastly greater number of Chinese passport carrying visitors[2].
Other articles were published attributing the success of
Hong Kong being to the collective efforts of its population rather than those
of the government[3].
It seems that all of these studies and commentaries failed
to point out what I would call “the Wuhan elephant in the room”; the risk of
Covid-19 contagion from the mainland was greatly reduced due to the fact that
mainland visits had correspondingly been reduced since June 19, when massive
protests debuted in Hong Kong.
Let us dig in the data that I got from the Hong Kong
immigration department.
From the onset, we can observe that the mass protests and
disturbances which started in June 2019 are clearly and directly correlated
with the reduction of mainland Chinese tourism to Hong Kong. December 2019
Chinese passport carrying arrivals from mainland China were down 52% when
compared to the same period in 2018. In January 2020, the decrease is even more
staggering, at 63%.
However, if we want to capture the true extent of the risk
that was actually adverted, we need to compare the January 2020 actuals with
what would have been the expected number of mainland Chinese visitors,
accounting for the previous years’ arrivals growth rate (about 15%).
When this is considered, we see that a forecasted 7.8
million mainland visitors turned into an actual 2.5 million, meaning that over
2/3 of these visitors did not cross the border in January 2020.
After much pressure from the medical sector and the population (strikes and
other opposition movements), the HKSAR government finally shut most of the
entry points to Hong Kong, which resulted in decrease of Chinese passport
holders visits of 98.3% and 99.5% respectively in February and March, over the
same months in 2019.
The low incidence of cases in Hong Kong also cannot be attributed to the Wuhan
lockdown, as it started on January 23rd. That was far too late for
it to be considered a significant explanation of the low cases incidence in
Hong Kong.
As numerous studies have confirmed[4],
the key to successfully control the epidemic is early action. It seems that in
Hong Kong’s case, the 2019 protests had the unintended beneficial consequences,
not only of having Hong Kongers distrust their government’s recommendations
regarding non-usage of face masks, travel, and border closure, but also in greatly
reducing the risk of contacts with infected visitors from the mainland.
Although it was due to different reasons, the data evidence
is also corroborated in Macau which saw a 75% decrease in mainland Chinese
visitors during the 2020 Lunar new year[5].
This was followed by a near-complete stop (-97.2%[6])
of all visits from mainland Chinese as China discontinued issuing single-day
entry permit to the gaming enclave[7]
on January 27th.
It is hard to put in numbers how many more Covid-19 cases
would we been diagnosed in the H.K.S.A.R, had Hong Kongers not started
protesting in June 2019 and mainlanders not significantly reduced their visits
here as a result. However, it is plainly obvious that the effects of the
protests in reducing risks did have a measurably more significant impact on
southbound visits than any measures Carrie Lam’s administration begrudgingly
took in the weeks that would follow…
[2] https://qz.com/1780709/taiwan-tourism-hits-record-high-despite-china-boycott/
https://kto.visitkorea.or.kr/eng/tourismStatics/keyFacts/KoreaMonthlyStatistics/eng/inout/inout.kto
https://www.immd.gov.hk/eng/message_from_us/stat_menu.html
3 million mainland Chinese visited Taiwan, 4.5 million for South Korea, versus
65 million to Hong Kong (2018)
[4] List
studies about early detection
[5] https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3047931/mainland-tourists-macau-plummet-during-lunar-new-year-amid
