In the Time of COVID-19 Outbreak, What Do We Care About?

Self-Protection and Loving Your Neighbors

　　It is reasonable that we instinctively protect ourselves from getting infected during this difficult time of the COVID-19 outbreak. Such a response could even be considered as a civic responsibility, since even one less infected person is a step further from overburdening Hong Kong’s healthcare system, and it indirectly helps contain the disease. However, as the epidemic continues spreading, when all we care about is self-protection, our way of life could very well be transformed into a very self-centred one. Yet, such a self-protecting lifestyle is not what the Bible wants from us; rather we are to love the neighbors around us.

　　In a time of pandemic, we must care about whether healthcare workers have a sufficient supply of protective gear at work, but is this concern driven by the fear that they may not be well equipped enough to help save us, or are we purely concerned that they may get infected? Saving lives is the vocation of healthcare workers. We have witnessed how healthcare workers in Hong Kong have burnt themselves up like a candle to drive out the darkness of the epidemic during the SARS outbreak. Nowadays, apart from offering words of encouragement and expressing our gratitude, can we put in more effort such as demanding the government take timely and stringent anti-epidemic measures so that the healthcare workers no longer need to exhaust themselves trying to save patients?

　　Poverty-stricken and solitary seniors are among the disadvantaged in Hong Kong and they have become even more vulnerable in this time of pandemic. Many of them are clueless on how to order face masks on the internet or even search online to find out where masks are sold. When the price of face masks was being pushed up to as much as ten dollars each, there was no way that these elderly could afford them. Many of these elders dare not step out of the house without a face mask and hence could not make it to the hospital for their follow-up appointments. Day care centres for the elderly are temporarily closed as an anti-epidemic measure, meaning some of these elderly people have nowhere to go but anxiously stay at home all the day. What is gratifying is that many churches are aware of their needs and have distributed face masks to them. While this shortage of masks is still ongoing, there is also the panic buying of rice to contend with. Some elderly people running low on rice at home have to travel all around town to buy rice but to no avail. These elderly people are suffering more than the rest of us and deserve more of our attention and concern.

Sin and Injustice

　　The outbreak of COVID-19 is related to human sin. We must denounce the selfish acts of patients visiting the doctor without declaring their travel history which put healthcare workers in danger. The escalation of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan into the current critical situation was due to the attempts by mainland officials to cover up the truth about the epidemic. The now departed Chinese doctor Li Wenliang was one of the first healthcare workers to blow the whistle on the epidemic, and he was reprimanded by the police for spreading rumors. With over two thousand deaths resulting from the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, we should condemn and demand the dismissal of those Chinese government officials who were responsible for this cover-up.

　　The battle against the pandemic relies not only on an excellent medical team but also on how much the general public trusts its government. Our society today does not trust the government for the following reasons: many Hong Kong people are still haunted by resentment toward the government accumulated during the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement; their trust in the government is even further degraded by the impression that the government has been slow in responding and reacting to the coronavirus outbreak. Not to mention the incapability of the government in stabilizing the supply of face masks which really aggravates this grievance. Mutual trust between the government and its people has been destroyed, and the general public turns a deaf ear to the government’s repeated effort in assuring the stability of supply back in the days of the panic buying of rice and toilet paper. The security of a society and the trust of its people in the government are closely related. We may ask how it is possible to restore this trust. For a chance of such restoration to stand, I do think it may take as much as a change in government leadership for the sake of greater political accountability.

Humans and Nature

　　The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress decided to impose a full ban on all illegal wildlife trades on February 24, specifically pointing out that the bad habit of overconsumption of wildlife must be abolished. The decision of such being passed at this time implied that the mainland government was aware of the association between eating wild animals and the pandemic, but it was already too late! It was after the SARS outbreak that experts had discovered raccoons to be the hosts of the SARS virus. But not only did the mainland government then fail to impose a ban on wildlife consumption after 2003, it actually allowed such businesses to grow into an enormous industry. As for this time around, pangolins are suspected to be the hosts of the novel coronavirus. Had the mainland government been decisive to ban all wildlife consumption, today’s epidemic might have been avoided.

　　This situation gives us an opportunity to reflect on the relationships between mankind and nature as well as between mankind and other creatures. The Bible distinctively tells us that humans are not hegemons, but keepers of the land. God is the Lord of nature and we are only entrusted to keep watch as stewards. But for a very long time, humans have mistakenly believed that we are the masters of nature who can freely decide the fate of other creatures. With this mentality, some people have become overindulgent consumers. We did not become concerned about the nasty habit of eating wild animals until after a plague outbreak. It’s a response that came late but better than never. Faced with this coronavirus epidemic, we must ponder what role humans should play in regard to nature, while Christians should allow messages from the Bible to reshape our understanding of the relationship between humans and nature.

　　Hong Kong had entered a tunnel of darkness since June last year and not even the dimmest light could seem to be seen from the end of this tunnel despite having suffered from months of hardship. The past few months have only led us further into pitch darkness along the tunnel. But the pandemic could also transform this tunnel into a classroom at the same time, allowing us to learn to care about those in need around us, to show our concerns for sin and injustice in society, and urging us to reflect on our relationship with nature. Although the lessons learned may not lead us out from the darkness right away, they certainly can help us avoid another time of darkness in the future.