Carrie Lam shows with her handling of the Wuhan coronavirus crisis that she's failed to learn her lessons from the Extradition Bill fiasco!

Posters currently on my neighborhood Lennon Wall

Close-ups of a couple: one entreating people to wear a mask;

another highlighting the mask shortage in Hong Kong

A sign at a pharmacy attests to masks not being the only items 

that are well nigh impossible to find in Hong Kong these days :(

News came last night that Hong Kong had its 15th confirmed case of the Wuhan coronavirus.  In a world with at least 17,489 reported cases of infection (the last time I checked the Wuhan coronavirus website that's regularly updated and pretty reliable) and the death toll of at least 361, it may not seem like much.  But in a territory that borders Mainland China (including a section of it where there are a good number of reported cases of infection), with terrible memories of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak and a government its people don't trust (including to tell the truth and actually care about them), it is something that has prompted lots of concerns, fears and even outright panic.

It really doesn't help that masks and other items that people wish to avail themselves of to protect them from infection have vanished from the shelves of pharmacies and other shops.  And it absolutely doesn't help that Hong Kong's current Chief Executive looks to be intent on making the same mistakes in dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus as she did with the Extradition Bill which she only finally withdrew after a good deal of terrible things had happened that now need to be remedied.  

As with the Extradition Bill, Carrie Lam is defying bi-partisan calls for action: specifically, in this case, for all of Hong Kong's land borders with Mainland China to be closed to try to stem the flow of Wuhan Coronavirus infections.  And, as with the Extradition Bill (and so many other things besides), she is trying to pull wool over Hong Kongers' eyes by pretending to do something (e.g., declare the Extradition Bill "dead") rather than actually do what the majority of Hong Kongers wanted her to.  

In the case of the border closures: Last week, she announced the closures of six cross-border checkpoints -- which sounded impressive until one got realizing that they just happened to be the six least used ones of Hong Kong's 14 land border control points.  Today, which saw an unprecedented strike by medical workers seeking to force the government to close Hong Kong's entire border with Mainland China, she announced the closing of still more cross-border control points; only the remaining three entry-points she's leaving open happen to be where more than 60% of visitors to Hong Kong have been arriving through in recent days.     

Does she really think Hong Kongers are that stupid?  Apparently so.  Something else the prideful "top girl" appears to be unaware of: Hong Kongers have long memories.  And it's not only personal memories of SARS tragedies that are fuelling current actions but so many memories etched into the collective Hong Kong psyche over the past eight months that make it so that Hong Kongers now know that they have to keep on resisting her administration (which includes the police) and also Beijing's attempts to make a mockery and farce out of "One Country, Two Systems".