Feeling fearful rather than festive this Easter holiday weekend :(

There will be no church services in Hong Kong

this Easter weekend

And sorry, the barbecue areas in Hong Kong's 

country parks have been closed off too!

Talking to a friend this time last week, I was caught by surprise when she mentioned that it'd be Easter the following weekend.  One reason for this is that I tend to associate Easter in Hong Kong with the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) but since this year's edition has been postponed to a later date, if not outright cancelled, I didn't have a marquee event to tie this Easter weekend to.  

Then there's the matter of there having been so little to celebrate; no thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus, which has been raging for more than 100 days now.  In addition, the Court of Appeal having made a terribly muddled ruling about the October mask ban on Thursday that leaves open the disturbing possibility of Carrie Lam introducing more Emergency laws in the coming months makes for another emotional "downer" as far as I'm concerned.  

Nonetheless, on account of the Easter weekend being a long weekend thanks to it comprising more than one public holiday, I have a feeling that certain public spaces in Hong Kong, including the country parks but also shopping areas, will be more crowded over the next few days than earlier this week.  Put another way: Despite the ban of public gatherings of larger than four being in place, I reckon a good number of people are raring to head out to have what fun they legally still can.  

As a big fan of Hong Kong's urban as well as country parks, I do applaud the fact that -- unlike in certain other territories -- they have (largely) remained open for public use (even if certain of their facilities, such as the country park's barbecue areas and the urban park's basketball courts and football pitches have not).   (Yes, chalk me down as one of those who firmly believes that public green spaces are good for the mind and, also, the immune system.) 

Something for people outside of the Big Lychee to bear in mind: the vast majority of Hong Kongers live in apartments rather than houses, and small to super small ones at that.  Consequently, the territory's public parks are the closest thing to private gardens that most of us have -- and their existence could be said to play a big part in helping keep many of us sane as well as physically fit.

Thanks to my having a far freer schedule than many others, I am lucky to be able to venture into the country parks on weekdays rather than the weekends.  And to help ensure that Hong Kong's hiking trails will nowhere be as crazy crowded like Mainland China's Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) last weekend, I'll be steering clear of them this long weekend. 

Here's the thing: Hong Kong's daily tally of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been trending down in recent days: with 25 new cases reported on Wednesday, 13 reported on Thursday and 16 new cases reported today -- in contrast to its record high of 67 cases reported on March 27th.  But this still is not the time the let down our guard and/or celebrate.  

Indeed, many people are looking at this long weekend with no small amount of fear that social distancing and other measures to fight against the Wuhan coronavirus might be thrown to the wind by folks raring to take a break from it all.   And while some people appear to still be doing the right thing this Good Friday, that, alas, is not the case for a number of others.

Really please, please, pretty PLEASE, people, let's try to make sure that Hong Kong's number of cases rocket up again and its hospitals do not get inundated with coronavirus patients in the near future, okay?  After all, as the worldometer coronavirus statistics for the Big Lychee show, 677 of our current total of 990 confirmed cases are "active": as in, the patients remain in need of medical care; some of them majorly so. :(