Lau Yu-lung said on Monday that history tells us no pandemics last forever, but warned that making the transition to endemicity too early would come with a hefty price.
“The death rate will be very high. Why is that? It is because the vaccination rate is not high enough. The zero-Covid policy we have been adopting means very few people have been infected,” he said.
“Why can other places do that? They grit their teeth and say they’d live with the virus. So, they paid a heavy price,” he said, noting almost 900,000 people in the United States have died of the coronavirus.
Lau said a transition away from the zero-Covid policy would take three to six months to complete, and it would have to come with flexible and precise adjustments to social distancing measures.
For example, when the number of new cases start to climb, measures should be tightened right away, he said.
The expert said authorities would also have to prepare for a surge in cases, and consider what kind of patients needed to be admitted to hospital or to self-isolate at home.
He also said he believes the mainland will consider “living with the virus” in the second half of this year, as long as the fatality rate falls below one in a thousand infections.