The spread of the Wuhan pneumonia as of today
A man visiting Hong Kong from Wuhan tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus that has infected hundreds of people in Mainland China alone and now has killed seventeen people there. He came to Hong Kong via the hated Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link which already upset people because of its co-location arrangements which gave Mainland China immigration authority on a section of Hong Kong territory and was used in the abduction of Simon Cheng last year, when the Hong Konger was working for the British consulate general in Hong Kong.
As though the way they have been dealing with pro-democracy protests and protestors is not enough to infuriate, Hong Kongers now can easily find fault with the local authorities' methods of handling what is amounting to a serious health problem besetting Hong Kong and the world at large. (Incidentally, the U.S.A. became the first non-Asian territory to report having a confirmed case earlier today.)
For starters, there is the government being slow to recognize that the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak is truly serious and not taking more preventative measures to stop it from arriving in Hong Kong. Then there is the matter of their still trying to prevent people from wearing masks in certain situations where many people will be gathered together (i.e., political protests).
So adamant are the authorities to turn the wearing of masks into a political act that none of Carrie Lam's administration seem willing to wear masks -- even for medical reasons. Thus one has the spectacle of not just one but two senior government officials coughing multiple times in public but refusing to put on a mask, as would be the medically safe and good mannered thing to do. And the fact that one of them is the acting Chief Executive -- while Carrie Lam is on a charm offensive in Davos (that's probably more offensive than charm) -- while the other is the health secretary really does not fill Hong Kongers with confidence in the intelligence and wisdom of the already pretty lowly-rated administation.
About the only silver lining that I can see in this whole Wuhan coronavirus thing is that it's one more serious problem that President-for-life Xi Jinping now has on his hands. And while I normally don't like to wish ill to happen to my fellow human beings, I must say that there are times when one really does hope that karma strikes certain individuals -- like was the case with the Chinese senior health official who, ten days after describing the Wuhan pneumonia as"under control", was diagnosed with it himself!
Addendum: I love how Bloomberg considers Hong Kong and Taiwan to be non-Chinese locations on its Wuhan coronavirus map. One awaits the reaction to this from the Chinese and imagines that it will be stronger than the reactions of others to the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s use of a map of China which includes Taiwan as part of it!
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