Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was in tears when she pleaded with members of the public on Tuesday to understand and respect quarantine rules designed to keep them safe from the coronavirus infection. Her emotional appeal was in response to scores of instances in which individuals violated quarantine rules by leaving their residences and consequently putting other people at risk of contracting COVID-19.
Numerous parents, especially mothers, share her strong concern over the safety of their communities as well as that of their children. It is shocking to find some of our well-educated young people so oblivious to such core values as abiding by the law and respecting others’ freedoms — from fear and harm in this case.
Among those quarantine violators are young students attending universities in foreign countries who have come back to Hong Kong for their own safety. One cannot but wonder who or what convinced them it was OK to act so irresponsibly. Did they think at all about the possibilities of spreading the coronavirus in their hometowns and putting a lot of people in danger, including their own family members and friends, by disobeying quarantine rules? If they felt it necessary to demonstrate their love for freedom by rebelling against the establishment, namely the SAR government, why did they not stay where they were in the first place?
The temporary quarantine rules are legally binding and violations are each punishable by a fine of up to HK$25,000 ($3,200) in addition to six months in prison. So far, at least five of the quarantine violators have been detained and locked up in a designated quarantine center in the New Territories, while the police are looking for the others still at large. The 14-day home quarantine is for the safety of the public and now widely adopted by countries hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, to stave off the risk of passing on the virus during its typical two weeks of its incubation period.
In light of such home-quarantine violations, the SAR government has tightened existing restrictions and added new ones to ensure public safety. It is understood that tens of thousands of students returned to Hong Kong recently because their host universities are now closed in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they could be in danger of infection or enduring physical attacks because they are Asian. And there could be other problems if they stayed where they were. As such, their personal freedom has to be compromised to some extent in these extraordinary times. In a sense, there is no better time to show one’s upbringing and moral attainment than today. That is why the quarantine violators are really giving their schools and families a bad name by being so prone to unlawful behavior, which works against the underlying principle of freedom.