Sunday, April 10, 2022

Covid testing and Covid theater in Hong Kong

 
When a negative result is a positve thing! 
 
At one of her close to daily press conferences a few weeks ago, Carrie Lam announced plans for a three day mass Covid screening exercise which would be entirely voluntary.  To encourage people to take part, the government sent out "anti-epidemic kits" ahead of the exercise (scheduled to take place this past Friday, yesterday and today) containing 20 sets of rapid antigen test (RAT) kits, about as many packs of KN95 masks and two packs of Lianhua Qingwen Jionang, dubious "Chinese medicine" whose stated function [on the packs] is "to clear scourge; remove toxin; diffuse the lung and discharge heat" (what. the. hell?!).
 
Although I've been known to take 24 herbs tea when I feel a tickle in my throat (as I've found that it can help lessen my cold and flu symptoms), five flowers tea to help digestion (and to help alleviate bad breath!), and chrysanthemum tea or turtle jelly to help refresh and cool me in hot weather, I'm giving the Lianhua Qingwen Jiaonang a hard pass.  Quite aside from my feeling sceptical that there are actual cures for Covid out there, this particular Chinese "medicine" also has been known to cause liver failure -- so I reckon it's far more of a health hazard than help!
 
Also, while N95 masks give a good amount of Covid protection, I must admit to thus far eschewing wearing them in this pandemic.  The reason is because they are pretty uncomfortable to wear for significant periods of time.  Instead, I prefer wearing KF94 masks, which have close to the same level of filtration and protection, but which I find them more comfortable to wear while still fitting far more closely to the face than surgical masks (which I was fine wearing until the super infectious Omicron variant came to Hong Kong). 
 
As for the RATs: I wish I had been sent them earlier!  As it is, I already had 9 of them: seven bought last month with my own money, some of which cost HK$75 each; and two sent gratis by my neighborhood association.  And, actually, because I now had so many of them, I figured I might as well take a test or two over the weekend; which I was already prepared to mainly stay at home (as has become my wont during Hong Kong's fifth Covid wave). 
 
In all honesty, I did this less to comply with government wishes and more to give taking a Covid test a try.  As it so happens, even while the Hong Kong government has put out orders to millions of people to get tested during the pandemic as a result of their having symptoms associated with Covid, being close contacts of infected people, flying in and/or out of Hong Kong, being residents buildings that were subject to "ambush lockdowns" or whathaveyou, I'd actually never taken one before this weekend -- and I wanted to get some knowledge and experience of how to take a RAT for should I really felt a need to (i.e., if I turned out to -- touch wood! -- be a close contact of someone infected with Covid and/or started having symptoms associated with it).
 
So, on Friday, I prepared to do this by going grocery shopping to make sure that I had at least one week's worth of food for if I tested positive and thus needed to self-isolate until I had recovered.  And then, on Saturday and again today, I took a deep breath and tested myself.  And tested negative both yesterday and today.  Which was a relief, because I really didn't want to test positive and have to lock myself up in my apartment for a week!

But here's the thing though: it all feels a bit like Covid theatre because the fact of the matter is that my testing negative yesterday and today is no guarantee that I won't test positive tomorrow or the day after and the day after that.  Etc.!  Put another way: the tests only tell the taker whether they are negative or positive at the point they take it -- and one's Covid infection status could change within a few hours, never mind days!

Which surely is at least one reason why the majority of people who responded to a poll on Twitter about whether they planned to take part in this "mass exercise" responded in the negative.  Another reason is, of course, that people are disinclined to do anything the government asks -- but doesn't require -- them to.  And then there's Carrie Lam having said that this exercise will have no bearing on the easing of social distancing restrictions and is not a substitute for a mandatory mass testing which the government still appears intent on implementing at some point in the future.  Put another way: she's not exactly giving people incentives to carry out the voluntary exercise, is she?

A reminder re the mandatory mass testing: it would involve the locking down of large sections of Hong Kong for some days.  And one can but hope that when (rather than if) it happens, the lockdown will not be as botched as the one currently going on in Shanghai is.  Because the utter misery, never mind chaos, unleashed onto/in that Mainland Chinese city has been shockingly horrific to behold (and has shown how false are the Chinese government's claims that it knows what it's doing, never mind knows best)!   

7 comments:

peppylady (Dora) said...

I'm a fan of red teas. My hubby and I got our covid test kits. There was only 4 test between 2 people.
Coffee is on and stay safe

Anonymous said...

Hi There,

I wonder why the lame duck did not make the RAT compulsory if they want to collect such information. And yet they waste some money to use mobile carriers to send SMS to us urging us to take RAT voluntarily.

In the past decade I go to herbalists to treat flu and other respiratory bugs as western meds usually invoke more discomfort or even make me feeling more sick, thus unable to function. Prescription Herbal tea by a trusted (and legal) herbalist usually lighten the symptoms in most cases, without taking my senses away. The free pills provided by the Government should be treated as Over the Counter medicine or supplements, which may or may not work. I would not risk taking them as they are unproven.

T

YTSL said...

Hi peppylady --

By red teas, do you mean rooibos tea? If so, sorry, am not a fan! Why did you only get 4 test kits? Are they expensive where you are?

Hi T --

The lame duck does a lot of inexplicable and stupid things. This was just one more of them.

I'm one of those people who gets flu shots when they're easily available (like this year). And yeah re those pills provided by the government. I know people who don't believe in any TCM. Sounds like we're willing to give some a try but not what the government's handed out to people as though it was candy!

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

It's in the News. The local Covid rules are going to be relaxed next week. But why am I having a bad feeling about it?

T

YTSL said...

Some possible reasons why you may have a bad feeling about this:
a) Not all of the rules are going to be relaxed and there's some illogic to which ones will be relaxed and which won't (with the latter including access to the beaches, and mask wearing still being required while exercising and in country parks);
b) Hong Kong getting its first Omicron BA.5 variant case today (though as an imported case rather than a local transmission);
c) The relaxation of Covid rules and lowering of Covid infection numbers resulting in the mass testing (and associated city-wide lockdown) being carried out in Hong Kong.

Brian Naas said...

The pills from Pfizer and Merck are supposed to be fairly effective in treating early covid. In the states these are readily available at pharmacies. So if anything they should have sent these pills, not a quack remedy. At least you are not in Shanghai. Yet.

YTSL said...

Hi Brian --

Those Pfizer and Merck pills are not readily available in Hong Kong pharmacies. As for your comment re my not being in Shanghai: yes, part of the horror that comes from seeing the insanity there for people in Hong Kong is the fear that we will be subject to it too at a later date.