Politicization of vaccine orders driven by anti-mainland paranoia

Rumors have been circulating on social media over the past few days that the HKSAR government's decision to procure some COVID-19 vaccines from mainland companies was politically motivated, and was made for the transfer of benefits to the mainland. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday denounced those "malicious rumors". She said a small number of people with "ulterior motives" have been trying to politicize the matter. It goes without saying that the rumormongers were trying to drive a wedge between people of the two sides and rekindle anti-government sentiment among local residents.

The latest attempt to vilify the SAR government's anti-pandemic effort is no different, in nature, from those in July and August, when the political fanatics tried desperately to derail the government's move to seek two mainland medical testing firms' help to screen some 400,000 residents who are considered high-risk for COVID-19 infection, and its plan to implement a universal nucleic acid testing program, smearing them as arrangements for "collecting personal information, particularly genetic information" of Hong Kong residents for the mainland authorities. The persistent politicization and sabotage of lifesaving efforts have revealed the political fanatics' despicable pursuit of partisan interests over the common good, specifically, the protection of the health and lives of Hong Kong people.

The political fanatics deliberately ignored the fact that the government had strategically sourced coronavirus vaccines from different suppliers, including 7.5 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from the mainland company Sinovac, 7.5 million doses of the vaccine developed by the German firm BioNTech, and another 7.5 million doses of the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

That the political fanatics have raised no questions whatsoever over the vaccine orders the government had placed with foreign companies further exposed their anti-mainland paranoia. Thanks to this deep-rooted paranoia, the political zealots in Hong Kong, particularly those separatists, see anything to do with the mainland as an eyesore. They hate anything that can bring Hong Kong and the mainland closer either physically or psychologically and have left no stone unturned to sabotage cross-boundary interactions and relations. They have relentlessly opposed the construction of the Express Rail Link connecting Hong Kong to the nationwide speed-train network through Shenzhen, and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai land link, despite those cross-boundary facilities allowing Hong Kong people to tap into the mainland market more easily and availing of the numerous economic opportunities on the other side.

To the relief of people who genuinely care for the well-being of Hong Kong society, those political fanatics are at their wits' end after the promulgation of the National Security Law and witnessing their destructive power fast diminishing.