Omicron Infections Worrying

Sorry little fella, you need to go... some 2,000 hamsters culled

Hamster-geddon has been the talk of the town today, as we watched news coverage of people giving up their rodent pets to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department to test them for Covid-19, and regardless if they are negative or positive, they are "humanely handled", but we all know what that means...

One father interviewed outside the AFCD said it was not fair, having to get rid of the animal when it was a living thing, and having to explain to his children that the hamster had to be destroyed because of the pandemic. But at the same time he said for the safety of the family the hamster had to go.

A mother said her children had been talking about getting a small pet for a while and then they finally got the hamster on the weekend, but now she was taking it to be culled.

AFCD asked people to surrender their hamsters

But others reported in other news articles have refused to hand over the animals, saying they would rather die than surrender their hamsters. Some saw this as an act of resistance against the government, and others even organised a system to take in hamsters as fosters; it reminded some of when strangers would taken in protesters for their safety back in 2019.

It has even gotten to the point where death threats have been sent to infectious disease experts like Dr David Hui Shu-cheong, and Dr Yuen Kwok-yung, but he brushed off the ominous messages, as he'd received them before...

In any event, seeing headlines like "Killing Hamsters Drives Hong Kong to New Low in Meeting China's Zero-Covid Dream", and "Hong Kong hamster massacre: Residents resist 'zero-Covid' city's pet project" give a horrific impression of the city, especially when no other animal-to-human transmission has been found around the world for the past two years.

While experts are still trying to find out if it was animal-to-human transmission or the other way around, Yuen believes the hamsters that came from the Netherlands, were most probably infected while in the warehouse in Tai Po, which is why he still thinks the cull was necessary.

Can you get infected with a mask on? Possibly

Today there is a report that one could possibly be infected with the Omicron virus just by passing by an infected person -- and everyone is wearing masks.

This is the plausible explanation of how a 26-year-old kindergarten teacher tested positive after passing by two infected people while walking in an MTR tunnel at a Mei Foo exit.

CCTV footage and her Octopus card transaction history showed she went through a tunnel exit at almost the same time -- just nine seconds apart -- as the two infected people last Friday. All three wore masks, and the teacher did not have contact with the pair.

Hui says this shows that the Omicron variant is four to eight times more transmissible than the Delta variant.

"If the index [patient] was near the kindergarten teacher, the wind direction could carry droplets [containing virus] to the teacher," he said. "Although a surgical mask could protect you from large droplets, it could still reach your eyes or leak in when you rub your eyes and nose."

He added that short-range airborne transmission could also occur if they stayed at a close distance, through gaps at the sides of the masks. He suggested residents wear glasses, plain spectacles, or face shields on top of face masks for extra protection.

Hui says Omicron droplets can get into the eyes

Oh no. Here we go again with people going over the top with a face shield on top of masks and those goggles usually worn in laboratories.

We are so exhausted by the whole pandemic and now we are told to be even more paranoid. 

"When is this going to end?" people keep asking openly, and there's no definitive answer.

Now that Omicron can possibly be caught so easily, restaurants are definitely going to see a drop in dine-in business, and who wants to even eat with a friend anymore?

It's all too much to bear. The impending Year of the Tiger is not looking good...