Experts Warn Against Lax Attitudes, Urge More Curbs

Two infectious diseases experts have called on the Hong Kong government to impose tougher anti-epidemic measure like making face masks compulsory, warning that many people were now lax in taking precautionary measures like wearing face masks.

Professors David Hui and Ho Pak-leung called much more tighter restrictions to deal with what they see as a serious outbreak of Covid-19 and said people should take precautionary measures like working from home, as a way to help contain the virus.

Speaking to an RTHK radio programme, Hui warned that if anti-epidemic measures are not tightened, then the city’s public hospital system might not be able to cope with an influx of Covid-19 cases.

Hui from the Chinese University said he thinks large scale activities like the Book Fair shouldn't be held, and the government should speed up re-implementing social distancing measures they introduced in March during the height of the second wave of coronavirus cases.

Ho from the University of Hong Kong said that the government's announcement last week to reduce restaurant capacity to 60 percent is not enough, and that they should reintroduce the cap of four people per table.

He told the same radio programme that he noticed a number of people were lax about wearing face masks, and said the government should legislate to make it mandatory for people to wear masks.