My Take | Don’t blame dear Nicole, it’s not her fault
- Now my secret love for Nicole Kidman is out, I must spring to her defence and say criticism of the Hollywood star receiving quarantine exemption should be levelled at the government, not her
Maybe it’s because I have been secretly in love with Nicole Kidman since the last century. But I find the current outrage rather misdirected at her; it’s really the Hong Kong government’s fault.
Her quarantine exemption – to enable her to film for a drama series in Hong Kong – falls entirely within an official scheme that also allows thousands of senior executives, diplomats and their families to skip mandatory quarantine imposed on all other travellers and returnees.
Unfair and unsafe? Absolutely! But is it any more dangerous to let Nicole into the city than, say, allowing the top bosses of any one of the 500 listed companies on the stock exchange to enjoy the same or similar privileged exemption from some of the world’s toughest travel restrictions?
Airline and shipping crews, and auditors of publicly listed companies are also exempt from mandatory quarantine.
Indeed, public outrage is entirely justified at a loose scheme that has created two classes of people: the VIPs and the rest of us. Are those executives magically more immune to the Covid-19 coronavirus? They are not exempted on medical grounds because of their blue blood.
Intriguingly, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau offers the same excuse for all those exemptions. The executives need to travel, the bureau says, “to maintain the financial stability of Hong Kong and our status as an international financial centre”; Nicole was let in because her filming work is “conducive to maintaining the necessary operation and development of Hong Kong’s economy”.
