HONG KONG - The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government made the "right decision" last week when it postponed the Legislative Council election for a year amid the raging pandemic, as it is every government's sacred duty to protect its people's lives.

Witman Hung Wai-man, Qianhai International Liaison Services' principal liaison officer for Hong Kong and the Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress, made the remarks in an interview with China Daily on Tuesday.

Hung said that when the government made the decision to delay the election, officials studied and acknowledged experiences in other jurisdictions.

"The UK government has postponed an election," Hung said. However, Singapore went ahead with its election, and then saw the number of new pandemic cases spike to two to three times what they were previously, he added.

Hung said that even one confirmed COVID-19 case is too many. "Should we put people's lives at risk?" he asked. "The answer is obviously no."

On Tuesday, four elderly patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus died, bringing the number of Hong Kong fatalities from COVID-19 to 42, local health authorities said.

Hung said governments are there to serve, help and protect their people. "As a responsible government, it should make the health and safety of the people its highest priority above anything else," he said.