Press Release on February 5, 2020
President of HKPORI Robert Chung makes
a public appeal to the Chief Executive
As the epidemic goes viral, Robert Chung, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI), makes the following pleading to the Chief Executive Carrie Lam today:
(1) Please let science issues resort to science, politics resort to politics. When dealing with the epidemic, please delegate your authority to trusted medical experts, like Yuen Kwok-yung, Ho Pak-leung, Sung Jao-yiu and so on. Questions like whether to close the border? How to close it? should be left to the experts.
(2) I earnestly request you our CE not to make it a battle of wills but to let the expert team decide how to cope with the demands from the medical workers, including those on industrial actions, according to scientific evidence and professional judgement.
(3) I also request you our CE to recall your “order” which forbids civil servants from wearing masks. Fighting against the epidemic requires everybody to work shoulder to shoulder and all of one mind. We need to protect every Hong Kong people regardless of their political stance and social status.
(4) According to the results of our latest round of “Community Health” survey, many Hong Kong people wanted the government to help the old, weak, disabled and grassroots. Therefore, I would suggest the government, apart from providing full support to our medical workers, to allocate and freely distribute protective masks to these needy people.
My pleas are based on my belief that when dealing with epidemics and public sentiments, science must go first and political consideration goes last, not to say dropping one’s personal arrogance completely out of sight.
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