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00:00Give us a sense of this policy and the controversy it's causing right now from a health perspective. What China's done really well in the first year of the parliament they've had very few infections very very few severe cases and deaths. But the virus is changing. It's getting more and more transmissible on the can is very transmissible. Be a to in the future be a for another sub variant. That means it's more and more difficult to stop. And we can see that in Shanghai where the authorities have had to be more stringent have more drastic measures than ever before. And this is what's going to happen in the future. It's going to be more and more challenging to maintain zero cases. So it's a policy which has of course these limits that you're suggesting here in Shanghai. Let's also take the example of Hong Kong where we are at the Shanghai like Hong Kong perhaps got to the point now where they may well ultimately have herd immunity. And does Hong Kong have herd immunity given what's happened in the last couple of months. In Hong Kong we have probably four point five maybe million infractions. Probably 60 something percent of the population interacted. We have herd immunity against BHP who are a large community epidemic in February March and April ended because the virus ran out of people to in fact in Shanghai. They still have a very small number of infections compared to the size of the population. They are nowhere near herd immunity. And the measures that have in place now are bringing the Daley case numbers down. But they would likely be needed to remain in place for another month maybe another two months to get the cases all the way to zero. And for the authorities to be confident the case is a Zimmer. Again the question really is whether China can shift away from Covid zero when its VAX rate especially for the elderly is not where it needs to be. Well I think that that's that's somehow that that the tail wagging the dog in the sense that if China were to announce a plan to transition away from the zero Covid strategy and emphasize to the older adults in their communities that they are going to get Covid and it would be better for them if they were vaccinated. When that happened I think we'd see a big uptake a big increase in the vaccine uptake in their elderly. I don't think it should be held as an excuse not to transition away from zero Covid. I think the overall strategy comes first perhaps a transition away later this year. And in order to achieve the aims of that transition then the focus turns to how to increase vaccine uptake in the elderly. But I would see some of their hesitancy as rational if older people are not expected to get Covid anytime soon. I can understand why some of them might choose not to get vaccinated. How crucial is the MRI any vaccine to China in containing the situation right now. I don't think it's a big factor actually in Hong Kong. We have older people who received the Emma Chandra vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine. We also have a load of adults who received the inactivated vaccine. And those in Hong Kong who got three doses of the inactivated vaccine were very well protected against severe disease in China. If they can raise the inactivated vaccine coverage to a high level in their older adults they'll be fine. They don't need them on any vaccine. Of course it would be better if they have any vaccines because they are more effective. But even with the available technology the not to make the vaccine they can still reduce substantially the risk posed by Covid than is the case here in Hong Kong though. Where is it the policy of getting back to Covid zero. Or is it a policy of normalization. In which case we would have to have a timeline as to how we achieve that and what the milestones are. And on top of that when I think we all want to those within the business community to that when quarantine will come to an end on entry in the territory. It feels like we're in some kind of a limbo between the two strategies. We're not really relaxing or the measures. We relax some but we still have the travel measures which I don't think are doing us any good at the moment in terms of preventing Kobe from getting into the community again. That's going to happen sooner or later. And in terms of keeping the numbers low. On the other hand if we're going back to the zero Covid approach which I think that the time for that has passed. But if the government chooses to do that there should be more effort on getting case numbers down. And if anything the quarantine measures for travellers should be tightened not relaxed because you got to stay at 0 4 for longer. So it's not clear what the longer term plan for Hong Kong is. And I know we have a new chief executive coming on the 1st of July that may also lead to changes in the direction. We'll have to see. But I really think in Hong Kong it would be a good time to plan a timeline for relaxing all of our Covid measures.

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HKU Ben Cowling on COVID-19 Challenge in H.K., China

Benjamin Cowling, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong, discusses China's zero-tolerance approach to the pandemic as Hong Kong is methodically moving toward opening up to the rest of the world. He speaks to Rishaad Salamat and Haslinda Amin on "Bloomberg Markets Asia". (Source: Bloomberg)

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