Citizens wearing face masks line up to receive COVID-19 vaccine in Hong Kong, south China, March 16, 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), sent condolences to the family members of those who passed away due to COVID-19, stressing the necessity of carrying out a comprehensive review on response to such large-scale public crisis and that she remained open to a review committee, according to a press conference on Sunday. 

The current public health crisis needs to be fully examined, covering the medical services, social warfare and public health, Lam told reporters, noting that this will be done in order to find out whether these sectors have coordinated well, and whether the current approach of handling the public health crisis was the best. She expects a thorough investigation into the city's handling of the current COVID-19 resurgence. 

As Hong Kong is still in the middle of an epidemic and as the chief executive, she should not be distracted from such a large scale review and believes that the next government will deal with it seriously, Lam said.   

The nomination period for the chief executive election of HKSAR will run from April 3 to 16. The once-in-five-year election, which was originally scheduled for March 27, was postponed to May 8 due to the COVID-19 epidemic. 

Vaccination is the necessary condition for Hong Kong to reopen its borders with the mainland and the international community, especially among the elderly and children, Lam said. 

Every city has a different approach in fighting the epidemic, which has been changing in a dynamic way, and on the different phase, the local government of the HKSAR needs experts' suggestions, which can't be defined as "the government's approach is always changing," she said. 

The chief executive also believes that the HKSAR is capable of controlling the new cases under a certain scale, and even curbing them to achieve the zero dynamic policy. 

The Chinese city has been seeing fewer daily new cases in recent days. Hong Kong registered 8,037 new COVID infections on Sunday, the second consecutive day below the 10,000 mark, and recorded 151 COVID-related deaths.

However, local public health experts warned that it should not lose the guard as the daily tally could rebound in the coming days and should maintain the strict social distancing measures. 

Global Times