Pandemic records keep on getting broken in Hong Kong, and the hearts of many Hong Kongers too :(

 

Seen on a wall back in November 2014 but even truer now

 

Hong Kong's Covid records keep on tumbling and the actual numbers keep on soaring to heights that are super shocking for those of us who have been used to seeing way lower ones until recently.  4,285 new cases reported were yesterday, all but 21 local transmissions, and nine deaths, including that of a 3-year-old girl and 100-year-old woman.  (The 3-year-old girl actually passed away on Tuesday evening but her death was included in the tally given out by the authorities yesterday.)  And these records lasted just a day as today's new case numbers totalled an eye-opening 6,116 (of which only 9 were imported) and news also came of 24 more deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus  (15 of them in the past 24 hours; 9 of which were tabulated only in the past 24 hours.)  

The scary thing is that we know that the worst is yet to come as, among other things, Hong Kong has another 6,300 preliminary positive cases today and there are more than 10 Covid patients currently in critical condition along with a further 60 plus in serious condition.  Also, consider that Dr Siddharth Sridhar, a clinical virologist who has worked in healthcare in Hong Kong for over a decade, was moved to openly proclaim yesterday that "Now, with a disease that is more transmissible/severe than flu, AND requires exposed staff to quarantine, HK’s hospitals are sandcastles in a tsunami".

 

Already, this fifth coronavirus wave's number of cases have surpassed the total number of covid cases in Hong Kong in 2020 and 2021.  And the extent of the clusterf**k that Hong Kong has been caught up in was brought home today, yesterday and Tuesday was really brought home by way of photos taken of outdoor spaces at various Hong Kong hospitals that had exceeded capacity and thereby felt obliged to place patients out in the open air for hours on end and even seemingly overnight.  

 

Cue major outpourings of anger and shame on the part of a good number of Hong Kongers, and justifiably so (for e.g., go here and here).  And for the record: it's been rainy for much of today and due to be tomorrow.  Worse, "Between 6pm this Saturday (February 19th) and 10am Tuesday (February 22nd) [the Hong Kong Observatory] does not forecast the temperature anywhere in Hong Kong to rise above 12° [Celsius]" (which is pretty cold by Hong Kong standards). 

Adding very much to the anger and frustration is the absolutely inadequate attempts by the Hong Kong government to deal with this spike in cases -- and overall deterioration in the situation -- and even admit that "Zero Covid" is no longer possible.  Indeed, an argument that the Hong Kong government had a big hand in creating this disaster.  A reminder from human rights activist Johnson Yeung: "In Feb[ruary[ 2020 medical workers went on strike to warn the authority the public medical system would overwhelm if a major outbreak occurred. The Gov[ernment] instead [went and] arrest[ed the] leader of the health worker[s'] union, low morale causing health workers['] resignation in [the] thousand[s]...".

And what suggestions or moves have the "patriots only" legislative councillors and other pro-Beijingers come up with in terms of suggestions to improve or remedy the dire situation?  A sample that shows how absolutely ridiculous their thinking is:  "1. Get fresh food by airdrops "like West Berlin did"[;] 2. Disguise mobile vaccination stations as [ice cream] trucks to be appealing for kid[s; and] 3. Stop domestic helpers from leaving employers' place on their day off".  

A good idea of how upset people are can be seen by their no longer being inclined to laugh at these idiots as well as the absurdity of it all.  Instead, people are really just feeling very upset and appalled.  We are talking after all of Hong Kong now having heartbroken nurses describing hospitals as akin to "refugee camps" and giving accounts of medics having to give up on patients, seeing Hong Kong's medical system crumbling before their very eyes, and people dying too.

Consider also the following account by David Chan, an emergency room nurse who is also the acting president of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority Employees Alliance: "Some of my colleagues say we are now in battlefield mode," he told reporters from AFP.  Talking about the early days of the pandemic and now, he observed that, "Back then, we did not know the virus well and we were short of equipment"; but "Two years on, we expected the Hospital Authority to have better plans -- but there turned out to be none." :(