News Snapshot:
The Hong Kong government recently ordered a cull of 2,000 hamsters on suspicion that the small mammals may spread Covid-19 to humans. The wanton disproportionateness of the cull reflects a penchant for sweeping fixes – never mind that they might turn out to be neither necessary nor conducive to a successful pandemic strategy. To be clear, I have no quarrel with the city’s zero-Covid strategy, which is in line with the rest of the country’s approach. While some have suggested that the obsession with eliminating Covid-19 is unrealistic in light of Omicron and other contagious variants, if zero Covid is...
