Omicron rages in Hong Kong. The city reports thousands of new cases every day, and the health system is on the verge of collapse. Beijing is now sending a corona task force.
Hong Kong/Munich – Corona is raging in Hong Kong* like never before in the corona pandemic. On Monday, the city reported a record level with a good 7,500 new cases of the highly contagious omicron variant, with almost 7.5 million inhabitants. On Tuesday it was a little less at 6200. The hospitals have been working at full capacity for days or are even overwhelmed. Some had to set up temporary rooms. At least two clinics even treated patients outdoors last week. Pictures showed patients in narrow transport beds on a covered forecourt, covered with metal blankets against wind and cold – because even in subtropical Hong Kong the temperatures at night are often below ten degrees at this time of the year. The authorities can no longer keep up with tests and the tracking of cases of infection.
Prime Minister Carrie Lam announced three mass tests of all Hong Kong citizens for March. The city didn’t have the capacity to do that. But now the school children are to be sent on early summer vacation from the beginning of March to at least mid-April, as Lam said. She also wants to distribute quick tests and masks free of charge. Thousands of infected people are also currently waiting to be taken to purpose-built isolation centers on the islands or in rural areas. According to Lam, authorities have identified 20,000 new isolation units in the past few days that will soon be ready for use, including hotels and public housing. From Thursday, rules similar to what is known in Germany as 2G will also apply in the city: access to restaurants, shopping malls, government buildings, the vegetable markets that are usually tight in Hong Kong and even to supermarkets will only be available on presentation of a newly introduced vaccination card. This 2G rule will later be extended to schools, hospitals and nursing homes.
Hong Kong: Fear of system collapse
The measures show the city’s fear of a system collapse. Until recently, Hong Kong had the pandemic under control. But now the city is slipping out of control. There are positive cases practically everywhere: in schools, authorities, hospitals, with security forces or in logistics. Since everyone who tests positive has to isolate themselves, there is always a risk of a collapse due to lack of staff everywhere. After four truck drivers tested positive at border checkpoints with China last week, the city immediately warned of delivery failures for groceries such as fresh vegetables. Hong Kong gets much of its food from mainland China.
Hong Kong, like mainland China, is still pursuing a zero-Covid policy to this day. The key here and there is a rigorous sealing off of the external borders – including the border between the two in the metropolis of Shenzhen. The border between Hong Kong and China has been closed since the outbreak of the 2020 pandemic. Anyone who lands at Hong Kong airport – which only has international flights – has to spend 14 days in an expensive hotel quarantine. So far, Hong Kong has prevented the pandemic from spilling over from Europe or America. The price: The financial metropolis, which is actually internationally oriented, sank into isolation like the whole of China*.
As a result, Hong Kong has had relatively lax rules within the city itself. However, there was always a sharp reaction to outbreaks with local lockdowns. At the peak of the four previous coronavirus waves, the city never saw more than 150 new infections a day. The system worked.
Hong Kong: Search for the cause of the corona chaos
But at the end of December, a single stewardess was enough to set off the omicron tsunami. A flight attendant from the Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific had not followed the isolation regulations after her return. She became infected in the quarantine hotel and later infected other people. Hundreds of residents of their Kwai Chung Estate condominium, which has several huge apartment towers, were subsequently infected. Despite unprecedented closures of three blocks of flats in the complex for several days, more and more incomprehensible cases emerged there. For the past few days, there have been several thousand new cases every day in Hong Kong. One end is not foreseen.
The government had prepared for a new wave in December. But the number of cases rose far faster than expected. Hong Kong has been looking for the causes ever since. Why has Beijing managed to contain Omicron so far and Hong Kong not? In China, all health data from the local Corona app is immediately sent to the authorities, who can use it to completely trace many chains of infection. Data protection in Hong Kong does not allow this. According to local media reports, the Hong Kong government’s pandemic advisor, Professor David Hui, also cited the city’s low vaccination rate, especially among the elderly, as a problem.
In addition, the population density in downtown Hong Kong is extremely high. In Hong Kong, many people still live in older residential areas with small windows and in cramped spaces. Some share even the smallest apartments with several households; a few even still live in notorious cage dwellings, side by side and on top of each other in a single room. Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the NGO Society for Community Organisation, reported about 300 people calling for help. These include infected residents of such divided apartments or cages. They would have to share living quarters and toilets, Szeder said South China Morning Post.. There is no room for self-quarantine. “Infecting one member can easily result in the entire household becoming infected.”
Hong Kong omicron wave threatens zero Covid across China
The chaos in Hong Kong is now also endangering China’s zero Covid policy, which the government is adamantly adhering to. A strict regime was in place at the Winter Olympics* in Beijing. All of the nearly 3,000 athletes and more than 60,000 support staff, volunteers and journalists were required to remain in the Olympic bubbles at the sports venues, wearing masks everywhere and undergoing daily PCR tests. That killed every boisterous atmosphere at the games. But there were only 435 positive test results in the bubbles, and most of them shortly after the athletes entered the country. Four days before the end of the games, there was not a single new case. Even before the Olympics, Beijing cracked down on every Omicron case.
Even before the games, the government of the port city of Tianjin near Beijing suppressed a smaller outbreak with rigorous sealing off of individual districts and mass tests* for all citizens. Other corona herds in the central Chinese province were also smothered. So far, the Olympics have not led to the feared large omicron eruption in northern China. On Monday, China’s health authorities reported just 144 new coronavirus cases, about half each from local spread and half from travelers. The capital Beijing reported nine such imported cases – all originating in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong in omicron stress: China intervenes
Last week, President Xi Jinping* instructed the Hong Kong government to take “principal responsibility” for the fight against omicrons. However, Beijing does not appear to be entirely trusting in Hong Kong’s ability to deal with the matter on its own. Beijing also dispatched a senior coronavirus task force to Hong Kong this week. Wang Hesheng, director of the company established during the pandemic National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control traveled to Shenzhen* to direct the work of the task force from the border city. In early 2020, Wang brought the pandemic in Wuhan under control on behalf of Beijing after initially chaotic conditions. He immediately coordinated with Hong Kong Central Government Chief Official Xia Baolong.
It’s almost as if a kind of parallel administration for the health care system is being formed. In any case, the announced mass tests bear the signature of Beijing. in China, affected cities such as Xi’an* or Tianjin tested the entire population of millions several times as early as 2021. But what Carrie Lam did not announce on Tuesday either: the complete lockdown of an entire city as part of the Chinese zero-Covid arsenal.
Hong Kong before the end of the zero Covid strategy?
But what happens next? Zero-Covid seems to have failed in Hong Kong given the high number of cases. There, unlike in China, there is always criticism of tough measures. And so there are currently increasing numbers of voices calling for a change of course. Instead of relying on an opening to mainland China, an opening to the rest of the world should be sought – among other things by ending the quarantine for all travelers. After all, Omikron has so far been less deadly than the Delta variant, even in Hong Kong. On Monday, the authorities there reported 16 deaths.
The problem: Hong Kong can only do one of the two. The opening of the border to other countries excludes an opening to China and vice versa. But Beijing doesn’t want to know anything about easing. China’s state media have repeatedly warned Hong Kong not to deviate from the zero-Covid policy. And China is increasingly showing its power over Hong Kong. (ck) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
#Danger #Chinas #zeroCovid #policy #supermarkets