Hong Kong's first ever -- and, hopefully, last -- pandemic lockdown

 

The nice way to get people to behave appropriately in a pandemic

The more restrictive way of getting people to not do what,

and go where, you don't want them to! 

 

Between my posting my previous blog entry and starting on writing this blog entry, a densely populated section of Hong Kong was placed under lockdown.  At around 4am yesterday (Saturday), the government restricted access and exit from the the area of Jordan bordered by Woosung Street in the east, Nanking Street in the south, Battery Street in the west, and Kansu Street in the north; and required the area's residents to stay at home and undergo mandatory testing for the Wuhan coronavirus until everyone in the area had been tested and the results of all those tests came in.

 

The government's original stated goal was to get this operation completed within 48 hours, so that residents could return to work from 6am on Monday.  The latest word is that the lockdown will end at a few hours earlier: at midnight tonight; and, as things stand, those area residents who have tested negative for the coronavirus are now free to leave and re-enter the area, provided they wear an official wristband (that shows that they have taken the tests and their results were negative).

 

Those looking for a bright side can cheer that this operation will be concluded quicker than expected.  Some might also see good in only 13 people testing positive out of the more than 7,000 tested in the area during the lockdown.  On the other hand, doesn't this seem like a major hassle to subject thousands of people to -- and, shades of the so-called mass testing scheme which took place last year, inordinate expense -- in order to find 13 more infected individuals?  

 

With Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung talking about how Hong Kong's first ever pandemic lockdown shows how decisive the government is in taking appropriate action, one can't help but feel that this operation was a PR exercise primarily directed towards the Hong Kong government's Beijing overlords.  The message: "See?  We are working hard to try to eradicate the coronavirus!"  

 

Alternatively, this action can be read as a menacing message to Hong Kongers and the world at large that "We (the Hong Kong government) have the power (and ability) to lock down any part of the city that we want!"  How else to explain why the authorities imposed this lockdown?  This especially when 72 percent of the coronavirus cases in the Yau Tsim Mong District over the last three weeks occured outside of the lockdown area. 

 

In a sign that points to the lack of efficacy on the part of the authorities: in view of the area being estimated to have some 10,000 residents by some sources (and tens of thousands by others!), it would seem that a significant percentage of the area population weren't in the area this weekend if just 7,000 or so are estimated to have been tested!  And, indeed, ahead of the lockdown, several residents were seen leaving the area, bags in hand!  (All of which has led one government advisor on the pandemic to conclude that the next time an area is locked down, officials need to move faster to avoid information leaks!)       

 

For my part, I feel that better planning for a future lockdown would need to involve greater cultural sensitivity and overall care.  As it is, there's sadly been quite a bit of callousness on show over the course of this supposedly public health operation.  Take, for example, the food that was handed out the area residents.  Despite the area being known to have a significant population of Muslim residents, there were no provisions made early on to hand out halal packages; with Muslim residents ending up being handed out cans of pork-based spam even!  

 

In retrospect, this could easily have been avoided.  But this goes to show the lack of cultural sensitivity and the assumptions that those in charge are likely to make; the last of which is that every household has a can opener (which is actually not the case for those whose elderly members regularly rely on getting cooked food delivered by social workers).  

 

A historian who studies famines, refugee camps and technologies of food security Tweeted her observations on the food packages delivered during the lockdown, and made far worse conclusions about the Hong Kong government.  The following is part of Jenny Leigh Smith's thread on this which I reckon is worth quoting at length: 

In recent years HK government has outsourced charitable feeding to NGOS, almost all focused on distributing hot meals. The logistics of distributing 30K hot meals today were always beyond govt/ NGO capabilities. the one place govt does have some expertise...      

 

Is in the food packages it supplies to refugees. I imagine these are split into two kinds of packets, one for refugees with kitchen access and one for those without, but in both cases the packages are meant to be insultingly basic, as austere and demoralizing as possible...    

 

My best guess, as someone who pays attention to the logistics of humanitarian feeding, is that HK's lockdown population got products from the "no kitchen refugee" list of foods the HKgov distributes to refugees.

 

The goal of these packages are twofold: #1 adequate calories #2 NO RESALE VALUE. That's it. Nobody worries about the optics of these packages b/c refugees have no status or platform in HK society. Someone in gov forgot the press would be watching a lot more carefully today.

Something else that members of the press couldn't help noticing and commenting upon was that the area selected to undergo Hong Kong's first ever pandemic lockdown is one of its most impoverished (as well as possessing a significant number of darker-skinned ethnic minorities among its residents).  Also that,  the words of Irish journalist Oliver Farry: "As one of Hong Kong’s poorest neighbourhoods is locked down, it’s worth remembering that the current wave was started by the city’s super-rich flouting social distancing restrictions for leisure reasons and they faced no repercussions of any sort for doing so."   

Lastly, let the record show that Hong Kong recorded 81 new cases yesterday -- pushing the territory's total number of coronavirus infections past the 10,000 mark -- and 76 today, putting its current total number of cases to 10,085.  And for those who are wondering: only one Hong Konger has received a coronavirus vaccine thus far; and he didn't get it in Hong Kong!