从今日开始，所有政府员工及市民必须使用“安心出行”程式，才能获准进入政府大楼或办公处所。这是收紧防疫措施的重要一步。然而，“安心出行”本身存在设计漏洞，与内地“健康码”相比存在巨大差距，再加上一直以来未得到全面执行，影响了整体抗疫成效，因此政府一方面需确保新举措得到不折不扣落实，同时应尽快升级程式的功能。

　　“安心出行”去年十一月推出至今已一年，在提升公众防疫意识、协助当局追查确诊个案接触人群方面，发挥了一定的积极作用。但无法否认的是，该程式存在较大的设计与功能漏洞，最关键在于三点：第一，并非强制，而是以“自愿参与、自主作记录”的方式运作，无法覆盖全部人口，更无法杜绝不扫、漏扫的情况；第二，缺乏必须的行程追踪功能，一旦出现感染个案，无法有效追查到全部密切接触人群；第三，未能做到“实名登记”，导致大量以“白机”或假程式蒙混的情况出现。

　　而即便如此，这样的“安心出行”也未能做到全面有效的执行。就在刚过去的周六，警方在湾仔等地执法，就查获了多宗未使用“安心出行”程式或使用虚假程式的个案，如果算上过去一年来的总数字，情况惊人。另一方面，由于允许以“填纸仔”方式登记，在一些人刻意抹黑抵制情况下，大量虚假的登记信息严重影响了当局追查感染个案的努力。

　　推出“安心出行”的本意，是要起到准确高效防控疫情的目的，但从一年来的效果来看，显然无法满足香港社会抗疫的需要。政府今日起收紧了政策、变相“强制”使用，做法值得肯定，但这仅限于政府大楼或设施，最容易引起传染的公共场所或餐厅等，“安心出行”仍然是处于可有可无状态。这种情况不改变，漏洞也就不能真正堵住。

　　有效追踪个案，是抗疫能否成功的关键，这无关政治，而是防疫的科学需要。且不说内地早已行之有效的“健康码”，新加坡早就推出“合力追踪”程式，印度、韩国等地亦有类似做法，这已足以说明问题。一些人对所谓私隐的不必要忧虑，不能以整个社会抗疫大局作为代价。

　　早前两地专家对接会议上，内地专家已指出了相关问题，并提出达至通关的几项具体建议，落实有追踪功能的港版“健康码”或者是香港提出的“通关码”，是重中之重。但时至今日，“通关码”仍在研究当中，香港整体疫苗接种率仍未突破七成，而疫情又处于高危季节，整体形势无法令人乐观。

　　香港已受疫情折磨近两年时间，已无法继续“耗”下去，需要有更果断的举措。推出真正能令人安心的“安心出行”，落实对接内地抗疫机制的“通关码”，真正控制好疫情，这不仅关乎公众对通关的强烈愿望，也是让香港早日回复常态，过上正常生活的必由之路。

　　2021-11-01

　　Optimising the use of the LeaveHomeSafe app to ensure truly safe travels

　　From today on, all government employees and visitors must use the LeaveHomeSafe mobile application for entry into government buildings and offices. This is an important step of tightening anti-epidemic measures. However the design of the LeaveHomeSafe app itself has loopholes, so there is a yawning gap compared with the Mainland's Health Code. Moreover, the LeaveHomeSafe scheme has never been fully implemented, which affects the overall anti-epidemic effectiveness. Hence the government must ensure the new measure be carried out to the letter, and at the same time upgrade the application's functions as soon as possible.

　　One year has passed already since the launch of the LeaveHomeSafe mobile app last November. The scheme has certain positive effect on raising public anti-epidemic awareness and helping the authorities trace contacts by confirmed cases of infection. Yet undeniably, the application has quite big loopholes in its design and functions. The most crucial are in three respects. Firstly, the use of the application is not compulsory. Instead it operates in a manner of "voluntary participation and recording visits at users' discretion" and as such it fails to cover the whole population let alone completely prevent some people from not using it or omitting to use it. Secondly, it lacks a necessary function to keep track of the whereabouts of its users. As a result, there is no way to trace and identify all of its close contacts once a confirmed case is found. Thirdly, there is no enforcement for "real-name registration [of mobile phone users]" leaving a loophole for a number of individuals to deceive by using unregistered mobile phones or even fake applications.

　　Even such a LeaveHomeSafe app with loopholes cannot be enforced with full effectiveness. Just on Saturday alone, the police uncovered several cases in Wan Chai and other places of not using the application as required or using fake ones. The situation could be quite shocking if all such cases in the past year are taken into account. On the other hand, as visitors to some places are allowed entry by filling in a paper-form, a lot of false registration information, a result by some people's deliberate smear and resistance, seriously jeopardises the authorities' effort to track confirmed cases.

　　The original intention of introducing in the LeaveHomeSafe scheme is aimed at fighting the epidemic with accuracy and high efficiency. However, in view of its effect in the past year, it obviously cannot satisfy the anti-epidemic demand in Hong Kong society. The government tightens the policy from today to make the use of the application mandatory in a disguised form. Such a move is worthy of commendation, though the enforcement is just limited to government buildings and offices. In public places or restaurants which are the most vulnerable to infection the use of the LeaveHomeSafe app still remains dispensable. If this is not changed, the loophole is not really plugged.

　　Effective contact tracing is key to the success in the fight against the epidemic. This has nothing to do with politics but a scientific requirement for the anti-epidemic battle. Not to mention the Mainland's Health Code that already proves effective, Singapore launched its TraceTogether application long ago and India, South Korea and other places also have adopted similar practices. This is a sufficient illustration of the issue. So-called [protection of] privacy as some people are unnecessarily concerned with must not be at the expense of whole society's anti-epidemic effort.

　　In an earlier meeting on the anti-epidemic work of the Mainland and Hong Kong, specialists from the Mainland already pointed out relevant problems and made concrete proposals on how to meet requirements for reopening the border between the two places. The priority of priorities is to launch a Hong Kong-version health code or the "boundary-crossing code" as called in the SAR. Yet to this day, such a scheme is still being under study. The overall vaccination rate in Hong Kong has yet to exceed 70 per cent, and the epidemic is still in a high-risk season. The situation in general is anything but optimistic.

　　Hong Kong has been suffering from the Covid-19 epidemic for near two years. It can no longer "hold on" and must take more resolute action.　　Optimising the use of the LeaveHomeSafe app to ensure truly safe travels, launching the "boundary-crossing code" to match up with the Mainland in anti-epidemic mechanisms and effectively putting the epidemic situation under control – all this is not only in response to the public wish for border reopening but also the only way for Hong Kong to return to normalcy and live a normal life.

　　01 November 2021