The Omicron variant still wreaking havoc in Hong Kong, and now doing so over in Mainland China too!

A quarantine taxi -- note the special marking on the 

rear side window -- whose driver hopefully was 

not infected with the Wuhan coronavirus!

 

Hong Kong reported a record daily high of 249 Covid deaths yesterday and 289 (229 new; 61 backlogged) today.  A reminder: prior to the advent of the fifth coronavirus wave, Hong Kong reported a total of 233 Covid deaths.  That's how devastating this Omicron-fueled fifth wave has been.  

 

And although it looks to have peaked in term of daily new case numbers (with 27,765 reported today -- both by laboratories and those who reported testing postive when self-testing with rapid tests compared to the plus 50,000s of a little over a week ago), there are fears that the high death rate -- with 1 in 20 cases in Hong Kong currently ending in death -- will continue for a time.    

As has been ascertained, reasons for this terrible death rate and toll include the vulnerable elderly having low vaccination rates and, when they are vaccinated, being vaccinated with Sinovac (rather than the considerably more effective -- against Omicron and in general -- BioNTech/Pfizer).  For an understanding why this is so, consider reading this piece by Francesca Chiu, whose father lives in a nursing home with "a strong anti-vax atmosphere", thanks in part to a dearth of support and information about the government's vaccination programme.  

 

There's also this piece of insight from public health professor Karen Grepin: "We created the idea, supported by GPs, that you needed to be healthy to get vaccinated. The older and the more co-morbidities, the less likely you would be to get vaccinated. The absolute opposite of what we want from a public health perspective."     

 

And how about Covid deaths that may be the result of Hong Kong's public hospitals being overwhelmed?  No numbers have currently been given with regards to this.  But here's some alarming figures with regards to Hong Kong's public hospitals to ponder: "The average occupancy rate of inpatient beds at 16 public hospitals soared to 104 per cent on Sunday, according to the Hospital Authority – the most crowded since mid-January", the Hong Kong Free Press reported; with 10 hospitals exceeding their capacity that day; and "[t]he Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin [being] the most overloaded, with an occupancy rate of 140 per cent, followed by Caritas Medical Centre in Sham Shui Po, which had an occupancy rate of 129 per cent."

 

The article further noted that: "The newly designated hospital for Covid-19 patients, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, also reported a medical inpatient bed occupancy rate of 128 per cent."  And for the record: the "[o]ther hospitals that saw over 100 per cent occupancy for inpatient beds were Queen Mary Hospital, Tseung Kwan O Hospital, United Christian Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital, Yan Chai Hospital, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital and North District Hospital"; medical facilities variously located on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories.      

 

Returning to the subject of the vulnerable elderly: in view of Hong Kong's taxi drivers being more likely to be elderly than young (with there being more drivers who are over 80 years old than below the age of 30 years!), one is moved to wonder what percentage of them have been (fully) vaccinated or even boosted.  And this especially so with regards to the 300 who have agreed to become designated drivers of "taxi ambulances"!

 

I hate to say it but my suspicion is that it's (far) lower than it should be, with negative consequences.  Or should I say "positive" as in "Covid positive"?  This morning, it was reported that 30 of the "taxi ambulance" drivers appointed by the government to ferry Covid-positive patients to and from designated clinics have tested positive for Covid.  And if you thought a 10% infection rate among the drivers was bad, consider that an update came later in the day that, in fact, it's 57 of the 300 taxi drivers have tested positive as of yesterday -- but, undeterred by this "development", the government is planning to recruit another 500 drivers to turn their cabs into "taxi ambulances"!       

 

And what else is the Hong Kong government doing to "fight the coronavirus"?  Well, it's being reported today that the authorities are going to close the beaches again as "Too many people have gone to the beach unmasked and pictures have also shown a lot of them had ignored the ban on gatherings of more than two people"!  And while another factor is that the temperatures have climbed up in recent days to the point that it can be considered beach weather, many more people are inclined to believe that this planned ban has to do with Mainland Chinese citizens whining on Weibo about their being subject to lockdowns but Hong Kongers remained free to go to the beach!  

 

With regards to the situation over in Mainland China: Covid cases have hit a two-year high there and millions of residents of at least cities (including Shenzhen, Shanghai and Jilin) are indeed in lockdown.  The situation in the northeastern city of Jilin is considered to be particularly severe.  And although its daily case number of 3,076 is pretty low to Hong Kong's (ditto the overall daily case number for Mainland China of 3,507),  it's worth bearing in mind that officials there know that what we're seeing is "the beginning stages of an “exponential rise”"  in the number of cases.  Also, that it is extremely likely that there is (deliberate) under-reporting of case numbers taking place (since China has a history of this).

 

Another measure of the seriousness of the current Covid situation in Mainland China: Local government officials of cities that have seen outbreaks have been sacked.  And yes, one has to wonder why the same fate has not befallen Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of a city with experiencing a far worse outbreak than that of Jilin and Changchun?!