If any chief executive was going to ban weddings just head of Valentine’s Day, the day of romance and love, it would be Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. As painful as the current Covid-19 restrictions are, such a certainty could almost be seen as welcome in our prolonged state of limbo.

Technically, of course, Lam didn’t actually ban weddings. The latest round of Covid-19 restrictions do allow two witnesses to be present at a marriage ceremony. Yet, places of worship, where many weddings take place, have had to close. So yes, love is tough.

When it comes to matters of the heart, we can count on Lam to give it to us straight, and maskless. She is the quintessential queen of tough love, and she has perhaps been toughest on the youngest in our society.

When we adults were young, school and playground time were normal events – but not for today’s children. Children develop during social interactions with families, their peers, and through school and culture. Forcing them to do so without one or more of these essential development tools harms their overall well-being.

Even Tarzan, the fictional feral child raised in the jungle, had the chance to develop in different social settings. Children simply cannot develop in isolation.

Older school-age children are overdosing on tough love, too. They are being deprived of relationships and processes that help them develop their concepts of individuality and how they relate to their community.

The trauma, deprivation and interruptions that have been forced on those who cannot speak for themselves and have not had the chance to grow socially or emotionally will remain with us for generations to come.

Tough love has been dished out to parents as well, tougher still for working parents, and toughest of all for parents who have lost their jobs.

It’s heartbreaking to learn that nearly 70 per cent of the city’s poorest has at least one family member out of work because of the pandemic, according to a recent survey conducted by the Society for Community Organisation.

Elderly people are getting their share, too. Hopefully, they are electing to take the government’s tough love on their arms, in the form of a Covid-19 vaccine.

And, yet, Lam also has the heart to tell us that her government is still moving forward with the chief executive election, scheduled for March, because the small voter pool makes it “far easier to put in place disease-control measures to make sure that it will be conducted in a safe manner”.

Clearly, it takes more effort to staff one of the current compulsory Covid-19 testing sites. And the administration wouldn’t want to subject our political elite to the harsh conditions faced by others, out in the cold and rain, hungry and afraid of being caught out or scared of catching Covid-19 while waiting in line for hours.

Our election committee members also don’t have to worry about asking their employers for leave to stand in line or risk losing their jobs.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the Lam administration’s priorities. The rhetoric the government has employed during the fifth wave, including the use of phrases like “racing against time”, is insulting.

Officials have had months to plan, consider feasible options and find and plug loopholes for exactly this situation. The race was lost because it is obvious, with the central government stepping in, that the Hong Kong government has no capacity or capability. No strategy can work without proper execution.

And since we are celebrating Valentine’s Day with tough love this year, here’s a dose for the Lam administration. More than a handful of local Chinese officials – including vice-mayors, district heads and health directors – have been fired, demoted, admonished or detained for failing to stop Covid-19.

So, if our leading patriots truly love Hong Kong and China, they should be willing to put their names forward to be at the heart of our political power centre, and ultimately, to be our next chief executive.