City's commerce official says supplies are adequate, no need for panic buying

Amid panic buying by Hong Kong consumers due to concerns over perceived COVID-related supply shortages, Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah assured that local supermarkets have sufficient supplies, thanks to the strong backing of the nation and the concerted efforts of supermarket staff.

Yau is a major Hong Kong official responsible for ensuring adequate supplies in the fifth wave of COVID-19 outbreak. He made the remarks in a phone interview with China Daily on Friday, as ParknSHOP and Watsons, the city's two retail chains, announced restrictions on the purchase of certain items like medicines, rice and toilet paper.

Yau said he has checked with the city's major supermarket chains and they all confirmed that the majority of goods are in steady supply.

He noted the city's supply chain is slightly hindered by restrictive cross-boundary traffic, and the situation has worsened as some delivery personnel like drivers and supermarket staff got infected.

To increase supplies, Hong Kong has teamed with Guangdong province to introduce new channels, including six point-to-point water transport channels between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It can compensate significantly the reduction in the land transport, Yau said.

According to a government statement, the city received 2,500 metric tons of vegetables from the mainland on Friday－5 percent higher than the average daily supply of the previous year. The total supply of chilled meat from the mainland was also higher than a normal day's and stood at about 90 tons.

Yau said that special arrangements have been made for the delivery of essential items, including medical supplies, so that they can be delivered across the boundary more easily than before.

To offer stable supply to the public, supermarkets also deployed extra stuff to handle materials that arrived. Yau said he believes as long as the city can maintain such supplies, people will stay calm and display steady purchasing behavior later.

On Friday, Hong Kong recorded another 52,523 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total tally to over 400,000.

With the number of infections rising sharply and given the concern about a complete lockdown during the planned mass virus testing in March, Hong Kong saw some panic buying among residents in recent days, as many people rushed to empty the shelves of supermarkets.

Jacky Ko Chung-kit, who has led a vehicle fleet to help distribute anti-pandemic materials, observed that biscuits, canned foods, toilet paper, and pain relief products have often been quickly sold out recently in nearby supermarkets.

Some private pharmacies also sell the medical supplies at a price several times higher than normal, Ko said.

To improve the situation, Ko suggested that the government should take more action, like cracking down on price gouging, to ensure supplies of key materials remain adequate.

Another frontline anti-pandemic volunteer Lo Hiu-fung said he expects the government to clarify the mass virus testing arrangement in a timely manner, to mitigate residents' concerns.

Also on Friday, Hong Kong Community Anti-Coronavirus Link launched a campaign to distribute 50,000 boxes of mainland-donated Lianhua Qingwen capsules to local residents. The medicine is a traditional Chinese medicine or TCM product approved for COVID-19 treatment for mild and moderate cases.

The residents can make applications online and the medicines will be distributed on a "first-come, first-served" basis. Every qualified applicant can receive two boxes. The campaign is expected to benefit 25, 000 residents. As of 3:30 pm on Friday, all the quotas were filled.

On Friday, a government spokesperson said the construction of community isolation and treatment facilities in the Lok Ma Chau Loop was "at full speed". The project includes a hospital for emergency use of about 1,000 beds, as well as community isolation facilities providing about 10,000 beds.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Friday expressed gratitude to the third batch of mainland expert team led by Liang Wannian, a disease control expert with the National Health Commission. She agreed with the experts' view that the city should concentrate medical resources on those patients most in need, to prevent mild cases from turning into severe cases. As per the experts' suggestions, the SAR government will also step up vaccination arrangements for elders, and give priority to infected elders when allocating isolation facilities.

Officiating the seventh anti-pandemic coordination meeting on Thursday, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, reiterated that the central government will lend full support to the Hong Kong SAR government's anti-pandemic efforts.

Xia stressed that the Hong Kong SAR government should shoulder the main responsibility in the anti-pandemic battle, and said he expects the city's principal officials to lead the efforts and play an exemplary role.

William Xu contributed to this story.