Celebration, caution and criticism on a Wuhan coronavirus-impacted Easter Sunday

Even on a non-public holiday, beautiful weather is liable 

to bring people out to the beach and into the water

I just really, really hope Hong Kong won't end up paying

for the fun people have this long Easter holiday weekend

Hong Kong reported a daily new Wuhan coronavirus case tally today that was in the single digits for the first time since March 17th.  This caps a week which has seen a decline in the total number of active cases in the territory to 641, according to the worldometer's coronavirus page.  And further positive news can be seen in there being just 13 patients among them that are considered to be critical or serious, including the fourth member of the police officer to have been infected by the coronavirus.

But with the total number of confirmed infections having hit the 1,000 mark yesterday, the Centre for Health Protection's Communicable Disease Branch head, Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, has cautioned against Hong Kongers letting down their guard and even suggested that the government's latest social distancing measures should continue past their already  extended date of April 23rd.  And with reports of large crowds being seen today at the seaside, shopping districts and those outlying islands (like Cheung Chau) as well as at the beach and prime scenic spots on Friday (though not Saturday, when the weather was less beautiful), I really do worry that Hong Kong will see a return of double digit daily numbers one or two weeks from now.

Something that's struck me as rather strange and ironic over the course of this Wuhan coronavirus outbreak turned pandemic: how it is that the hedonists and (super) religious people have made for strange bedfellows in that they appear to be most likely to ignore calls for social distancing and general caution when confronted with this deadly as well as infectious disease. 

Last month, for instance, we saw sun-worshippers crowd the beaches of Florida during Spring Break and, on the eve of the implementation of lockdown measures in the country, Australia's Bondi Beach.  Around the same time -- and even earlier -- in a number of countries across the globe, the faithful had flocked to attend mass religious gatherings that turned out to have been key events for the coronavirus to infect hundreds, even thousands, of people.

To this end, certain Christian leaders should be applauded for moving their Easter services online even while others refuse to do so.  To be honest, when viewed from Hong Kong, it's amazing that it's taken many other territories' religious leaders so long to adjust to our now living in a coronavirus-filled world (since Hong Kong religious leaders got to doing so as long ago as February).

I realize it's early days yet but, already, it is clear that certain people -- and leaders -- have responded better to the threat to their community posed by the coronavirus than others.  Interestingly, in a Guardian article about world leaders who have impressed during this global crisis and those who have not, the three identified as having come up trumps (thus far) are all women (i.e., Denmark's Mette Frederickson, New Zealand's Jacinda Arden and Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen) while all the men profiled (i.e., Brazil's Jair Bolsanaro, the United States of America's Donald Trump and Communist China's Xi Jinping) have not.

Of course, as Carrie Lam has shown, however, being female doesn't automatically make one a good leader.  But one big reason why she is such a terrible leader is that she's so beholden to Beijing (and, unlike the likes of Tsai Ing-wen, was not elected by the people).  Speaking of which: it really does worry me that: as Noah Shusterman Tweeted a while back, "We're staring at a near-term future where China rides a pandemic that started in its backyard to increased power, both domestically & internationally"; and, to quote a recent Guardian piece, "China is already on a victory lap of sorts, believing it has deftly repositioned itself from the culprit to the world’s saviour."   

It really doesn't help the USA's case that it's now the world leader in confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases and fatalities.  Neither does the rise in racism against Asians and Asian-Americans in that country.  But, lest the world needed any reminder that the Chinese are well capable of racism themselves, look at what's been happening to Africans in Guangzhou in recent days.

A Malian friend and I discussed these events earlier today and he assured me that this news had spread internationally.  I'm glad because I think the world would benefit from seeing Communist China's true colors.  I'm also glad to see the likes of the Ghanaian and Nigerian governments taking some action.  And while we're at it, here's pointing out that the racist attacks against him that World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus mistakenly thought had come from Taiwan had actually been generated by Mainland Chinese netizens!