In its early stages, the COVID-19 pandemic forced governments to mobilize quickly and comprehensively, drawing not only on public resources and coordination capabilities but also on the cooperation and buy-in of civil society. Political and institutional legitimacy are crucial determinants of effective crisis management, and low-trust states lacking such legitimacy suffer a profound disadvantage. We examine Hong Kong as a case where failure to respond effectively could have been expected due to low levels of public trust and political legitimacy, but where, in fact, crisis response was unexpectedly successful. The case calls for a more nuanced understanding of policy capacity, including how social behaviours and norms are structured and reproduced amidst existential uncertainties and policy ambiguities. We propose the concept of community capacity to fill this conceptual gap.