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From the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, many focused on China's commitment to fight the virus. However, there are always some disturbing protests and rumors to distract people from the battle, and many were made by people in Hong Kong. However, this won’t help anything get better.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, some doctors and nurses in Hong Kong launched strikes with the intent to pressure the HKSAR government into a total shutdown of the border between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

This is unnecessary, because if there is a total shutdown, the bond between mainland and the island will be cut, and it will fall into the hands of these people who want to get "independence," let alone allow both sides to fight the virus and support each other. Moreover, there is enough medical equipment from the mainland that can help Hong Kong hospitals in need.

Secondly, because of the masks protestors wore during protests, they can hardly be identified. It is even harder to identify them after the COVID-19 has spread to Hong Kong, as now nearly all people wear masks to prevent them from getting the disease. Cheung Siuwai, a senior lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University, argued that among union members that went to protest, "some of the people are not necessarily frontline nurses." In this sense, the medical masks would act as a kind of camouflage to hide the true identity of the protestors.

Also, we needn't be frightened of people who wear masks, because not all of these who wear them are confirmed patients. Layne Vandenberg said in an article "The Face of the Coronavirus: Face Masks" published in The Diplomat that "face masks are not the solution to coronavirus, and those who wear them are thus not the culprits nor the faces of the illness."

Thirdly, Hong Kong’s economic outlook has been dampened by last year’s chaos and it needed to have a peaceful year to start. If the protests go on and on, the chaos would cause severer damage to the society, especially in the uncertainty of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

In fact, the central government is paying special attention to Hong Kong, even during the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan.

To ensure that the condition in Hong Kong is healthy, China's central government in Beijing changed the director of HK and Macao Office of the State Council right on the same day when it changed two Party chiefs respectively in Hubei Province and Wuhan City to battle the COVID-19.

Ren Yi, a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School, said in an opinion post on WeChat that "by looking at the previous positions of the newly appointed top official to do this job, we can learn that the central government want to directly know what is really happening in Hong Kong. They are also creating a new mechanism to deal with the issues there."

Fourthly, it is not a good time to gather in crowds on street to protest, because in preventing people from getting the virus, people are not encouraged to gather. If they really care about the health conditions of patients as well as themselves, then it is better for them to stay in the hospital to cure the needy people or stay at home to lessen the probability to be infected.

They need to pay special attention to the COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong, which killed 2 patients already and confirmed cases have spiked to nearly a hundred, with several cases being confirmed each day in the past few days.

Last but not least, we need to keep in mind that the virus identifies no region. Whether you live in Wuhan or in Hong Kong, whether you live inside China or abroad, anyone can be infected with the disease. Just as we have seen right now the virus has spread to six continents around the globe. What we need to do is to cooperate, share curing experiences, and dispel the scourge of fake news and conspiracy theories about the virus together.

In support of the battle against the disease, a new song "After the Storm" was produced by Hong Kong pop singer Jacky Cheung, Taiwanese lyrics writer Vincent Fang and Taiwanese composer Jay Chou. They set a great example of making their song into a musical video featuring news materials from media in Chinese mainland, HKSAR and Taiwan with lyrics go like this – "together we sow the seeds of hope, waiting for them to blossom. "

(Script writer: Xiong Tong)

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)