Another record breaking couple of days in Hong Kong as far as Wuhan coronavirus cases go :(

The two forms of transportation I most regularly use in Hong Kong

 Fewer people seem be taking the tram and bus these days though

So plans are afoot to decrease public transportation services! :(

We've had another couple of days of Wuhan coronavirus records being broken here in Hong Kong.  Yesterday saw a new record number of confirmed daily cases (123) along with one more life lost to the coronavirus.  And things got worse today with the surge in daily new cases leading to a fourth consecutive day of record breaking numbers: with 133 more cases reported today; and two fatalities (bringing the territory's total number of coronavirus deaths up to 18 now).

For good measure, today has also seen record numbers for active cases on record (1,018) and critical patients on any one day (37).  The former statistic is worrying because this is a situation that's obviously putting a serious strain on hospitals.  Consequently, while up through early this week, Hong Kong had been hospitalizing every single one of the territory's coronavirus patient -- be they asymptomatic or seriously ill --  a number of patients who were fever free and in stable condition were transferred on Thursday to the Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Camp, which previously had been converted into a quarantine center.    And the latter number is sad to see as it leads us to expect for there to be more deaths from this widespread illness in the coming days.  

Perhaps it smacks of my trying to be Pollyannaish but I do take some comfort from today also having seen the highest number of patients discharged in a single day to date (50).  At the minimum, it's a reminder that many people do recover from being infected by the Wuhan coronavirus.  Also, in the "thank goodness for small mercies" department is the fact that -- touch wood! -- the number of daily coronavirus cases have not risen exponentially in recent days.  (And to put Hong Kong's third wave stats into perspective: consider that its average cases per 100,000 people numbers are still lower than not just the USA's or Brazil's but also that of Singapore, Sweden and Australia.)

Of course, this by no means means that we can relax our guard in this fight against the Wuhan coronavirus.  Or, for that matter, even do such as socialize or go out as much as normal.  Even in normal times though, I would never go to as many places -- and in such a wide area of Hong Kong -- over the course of a single day as a 36-year-old individual who, on the day that she was confirmed as positive for the coronavirus, went to 16 different locations in several different sections of town (in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories)!

I could be generous and ascribe the recent decisions to reduce bus and MTR services as attempts to stem the movements of individuals like that.  But the reality, of course, is that those actions will probably result in more crowded buses and MTR trains than would be ideal, especially during a pandemic, as well as were made for economic reasons (to save the transport companies' money). It's almost like Hong Kong's policy-makers all travel about in chauffeur-driven cars and are supremely out of touch with most Hong Kong people -- and reality itself!  (More than by the way, remember "toilet papergate" -- and I do not mean the toilet paper shortage we faced earlier this year!!)

In any case: I hope that, since public transportation services are being reduced, junk boat trips are too -- if not outright banned.  Every time I see one of these vessels sailing back into town, they look to be filled with people who don't care to socially distance (forget masking up).  So it really was a matter of time before people would get infected by the coronavirus while on a junk boat trip, especially as it's really not impossible these days that one of their fellow junk boat revellers will have been infected already -- as was revealed to be the case today!