00:00[CC may contain inaccuracies] We are here in the Health Bureau of Hong Kong with our special guests an exclusive interview with Low Tung Ma. He is the health secretary of Hong Kong. Thank you so much for giving us this interview and a very interesting time for Hong Kong. Obviously we've gone in staged relaxation of the Covid curbs and the hotel quarantines have been scrapped as Richard just said to be replaced by zero days quarantine plus three days of self-monitoring if you will. Plus I might add many tests. Obviously people here in Hong Kong they want more relaxation. Why is it you cannot give the Hong Kong people more of a road map on what is required. What are the criteria so we can get to full relaxation. Yes you can see Hong Kong has been implementing quite a number of measures in terms of getting our connection back to the international arena. Now starting from the removal of deal suspension of the circuit breaker for these all these international flights and also switching from 70 hotel quarantine to free press 4 and then now Singapore 3. And if you look at the whole process I think we are working faster than what other peoples expect. Now when we announce. It wants to get the interval from announcement and indentation is the first time it's four days. And this time from three plus four to three super three is only two days. But you look at other countries enough time they there is a long interval from announcement to implementation. I think Japan has done something by mid October. They will be removing something. And you seems to like it very much and said that Japan has already opened up. Well Japan is going to go on par with the United States. We know that Singapore has opened up since last March. We know that these are competitors regional competitors. And that is the main argument. And our main constituents are watching right now. I tend to be in the banking community and they need that assurance that Hong Kong will remain viable. How as health secretary do balance because you've been quite hawkish if you want to call it that. You've been against the further opening up. What changed your tune. I don't think I'm the one who was against it over now. I'm the one who was gauging the health care issue with the need for opening up. I never got a pulse. I personally I like to open up. There's no reason why I don't want to open up for the level. Hong Kong. I'm a Hong Kong citizen as well. And I know Hong Kong is a very international city. But the importance that we had a gateway for our motherland and the we have always emphasized so Beijing that story was always emphasized that Hong Kong is not one country to a system where to maintain this. And we have to continue to become a gateway. If we want to be a gateway we have to connect between mainland and the international world. And if we cannot connect to the rest of well how can we serve as a gateway. So there's no reason we are not opening up. So we have to do it cautiously safely and smoothly. What's holding us back though because the virus situation right now is fairly tame relatively speaking compared to the fifth wave early part of this year. I believe there's only 13 cases in ICU right now. And I know that's 13 to many. But still is there a best case scenario that we could see by the end of this year if things remain relatively stable like this. Again I go back from the July 1st. We have been opening up faster than people expect when people were expecting from zero percent thumb seven plus zero to five days. Hotel grunting we moved to three and we announced and then four days later we implement. And from the trove of a corpus which is the three peaceful policy started and to now the service fee is slightly more than a month. And there's only two days of gap between the announcement and people were expecting that we will be doing a perhaps 0 7. Sure. If we do it too simple and 3 it was better than expected. But do you see us in there. And this is what faster. This is what everybody wants to know. Do you see as this as the health secretary a scenario where you can go zero point zero at even Regina if the convenor of the executive council says it's possible by October. Others want it by November when you have the banking summit and the rugby sevens. Is it possible this year. Is this possible today. I will wait till tomorrow. So it's possible today. Why no we have. We are looking at the data. We have just changed to 0 3. Remember when we put up this infrastructure is actually better than people's expectations. They are expecting 0 7. OK. So why are you expecting 0 7 3 4 days ago. Only this week. Sure. Oh lastly. But now suddenly you think that Super 3 0 works. So we have to be based on data. We look at it. And right now I think still the international I mean the global pandemic is still evolving. Now we are we're coming to see the light at the end of the tunnel that the severity of disease is getting less the number of infections is getting less. And we understand different countries different regions are opening up moving. But I must emphasize that comfort it's like it's a disease with the whole world a global village. Every country got sick. We know in 2020 every country in the world they are going for this lockdown. Many countries this lockdown stop travel. We learn and slowly we see how to treat this disease slowly. This is the the issue the rest of the world has opened up except for China. Are you more concerned with maybe Hong Kong being blamed for any leakage into mainland which is still adhering to extremely strict 0 Covid policy. No we're not adopting a very strict code of policy. We are evolving. But I must emphasize that we are part of China and this is our obligation to make sure that we will call. A major outbreak in the rest of China. We are doing this and I always emphasize the hope press and government has always emphasized this no conflict between opening to the into the national well and the connection with our motherland. We must do that. If Hong Kong has no connection with China. Always status will be seriously compromised but we are different from single pool and that's the main criteria though for going to zero plus zero. China relaxing. I mean there's been a lot of expectations that perhaps after the party Congress or even in the spring that China it won't be until the spring that China relaxes. They have to at some point because of the economy and because of the pressures obviously. But when the political tension is somewhat removed after the party Congress and China perhaps relaxes its Covid 0. Is that the essential precursor for Hong Kong to relax further. It tests one not the thing that we have to consider. Now we have to consider for example we are considering other countries opening up right. That's why we also look antiquated policy will evolve. Why do you say that we cannot consider this situation in China when we consider it overall and equal the policy right. Well I don't think Hong Kong can just look at the international scene and follow the rest of the world. We have to consider the other thing the the other side of the story. I'm a mother and I I put this analogy that our motherland is like family. And the rest of the world is my Korea. I have Korea but I also have my family. So my family I know I have to consider you know my family not just you know my family has given me great support. Remember in the early this year when whole call has getting to a huge wave of Dilma crying when our healthcare system is in trouble and we have wonderful support from our motherland. But we have to recognize that. Are you worrying too much about the possibility of future variance. So. Which which is essentially that's not a sure thing that the pace of the ah the the virus's prevalence in society is going down. But it seems as though those buffers are keeping in place because you're worried about new variance variants this winter. Never too much. We must be. Prepare for a future variant. We know that these viruses stay off and even for influenza. We know influenza has been less well over 100 years now and even influenza every now and then. We have a new variant coming up the avian flu the swine flu. Well if it comes we have to be prepared. So but of course we shouldn't be overdoing this right. I'm saying very important thing. It's like treating disease. We have to have individualized medicine. And that is why we have individualized anti corporate strategy. Every country every region every city has to consider his own situation. Hong Kong has some major wave early this early this year. And we do suffer a lot in terms of the health and life of the people. Are you doing the kind of genetic sequencing of all positive cases that will give you any kind of. Or do you have any kind of evidence that other variants are coming in or that will be a difficult winter in fact. Indeed we are doing that. And it's one of the reasons that we're still doing testing for all inbound travelers. And right now we know is to be a five. But we know there are other variants coming up the rest of the world. So as a responsible healthcare you know Beryl we have to make sure that we will have this potential risk as we face the burden to such a challenge. Now can you give me any update on negotiations or talks with the mainland about what John Lee the chief executive has proposed and that is a reverse quarantine where those who want to go into China would quarantine here first before going across the mainland. Do you have any update. That's not any negotiation. I don't like the word negotiation. What is it is a collaboration. We tried to collaborate to facilitate the people movement across the border. Right. We know China meaning. Oh Netherland has its own anti coal that strategy. And this is the beauty of the one country two system. We have the same direction. We have we want to make sure that we protect people's health and life. But on the other hand we know that Hong Kong is different. In a sense it's the international city the people's habit culture the health care system is different and IBEX rate for example it's a little bit different now. So we are moving on. We are having different meetings to make sure that we can follow the protein requirement for China. We know it's still 7 4 3. So we have to adopt the same kind of approach. For example the closer arrangements with the staff the how are we going to move the these people after quarantine in Hong Kong across the border. So we are considering whether we have a separate bill to cross-border. Apart from the Sun and Bay. So these are details. But I must say we are having a very good discussion on how to work together for this and a timeline as far as possible. As I said as is possible not if it can be done today I will get to it tomorrow. But. All right. Dr. Love Tung. I ran out of time. I was gonna get to a number of issues. Hopefully we will talk to you again when Hong Kong relaxes further. Look forward because you're not going to roll back right. Not if it's not if there is no more Varian new Darian we have to be prepared. Every emerging disease may come any time. We the whole world has to be prepared. All right. Well with the president and on the clock we'll have to do some convincing to get all those bankers to come to the banking summit. November 1st 12 Covid tests court 12 Covid tests. And no restaurants are bars for three days. So it's going to be a tough sell. But thank you so much Dr. Low Table for joining us.
