Is the Fourth Wave Over Yet?

Community Testing Centres were fully booked for tests

 

For the first time since November 18, Hong Kong logged nine new coronavirus cases today, four of which were local, five imported.

However, health officials at this afternoon's press conference were at pains to remind the public to not socialize too much during the Lunar New Year holiday, that if they feel unwell they should seek medical attention, and to be vigilant about wearing a mask and hand hygiene.

Centre for Health Protection's new chief Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin was asked by a reporter that while the number of cases has dropped to single digits, was another three days enough to indicate this was a decreasing trend in order to allow gyms, beauty parlours, cinemas and amusement parks to reopen this Thursday, while restaurants can open until 10pm with four people per table.

Dr Lam warned the public to be careful these days

He was desperately doing verbal gymnastics to say that while the number of cases today was low, people will be going back to work tomorrow and that there is a possibility of a surge in infections in the next day or so, and didn't really answer the question.

"Looking back at past experience, usually after long vacations and gatherings... we will see some form of upsurge. We will not rule out the possibility that the number of cases will go up again. We need to observe that trend and be very, very cautious," Lam said.

As he was saying this, my neighbours were having a karaoke party one floor above, belting out Cantopop songs from the 1990s. 

This past weekend hotels were also very busy with staycations for Valentine's Day, many guests staying for two nights, along with special lunches and afternoon teas.

Again -- why did the Hong Kong government choose February 18 to reopen the above mentioned venues and not wait two weeks until the end of the month or early March? February 18 seems to early to tell if this is definitely a declining trend.

If restaurants and other places reopen, the chances of infections will rise again and Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will never reach her zero infection goal.

Many enjoyed staycations for Valentine's Day

Meanwhile chefs on social media are already hinting they will reopen this Thursday and that they can't wait to cook for dinner service.

However, I am of the camp that we should wait a bit longer to ensure the number of infections is definitely on a downward trend. It seems irresponsible for the authorities to promise something like this when on social media there are pictures of gatherings larger than 10 in people's flats to mark the start of the Year of the Ox.

And those are the get-togethers we know about. 

One of the infections reported today was a baker who worked in a bakery in a Tuen Mun shopping centre, and another was a student who has been studying online for months and hasn't been on the school premises.

Meanwhile to prepare for openings on Thursdays, all the community testing centres in the city are all booked solid for appointments and health officials again reminded people that they could also get tested by leaving their deep throat saliva samples in collection boxes at MTR stations.

Tomorrow and Wednesday should be interesting in terms of the number of cases and what will the government say if there is a surge in cases...