Hong Kong's Covid Death Toll Still Surges

Elderly patients have been outside overcrowded hospitals

Hong Kong logged a record 249 deaths in the past 24 hours, much higher than the start of the fifth wave.

When Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was asked to comment, she insisted her government had "put in all the necessary effort in order to keep Hong Kong people safe".

"We have spent over one year to promote, to encourage, to coerce people to take the jab, but unfortunately, partly because of the low infection rate in the last year or so, and partly because of anxiety and worries and so on, we have not achieved a high rate of vaccination, especially amongst the elderly, particularly amongst elderly in elderly homes," she said.

Lam says govt has done its best for vaccinations

"There are a lot of things in our city that should be revisited and we should take a critical look in order to prepare us for a future public health crisis."

Sounds like someone is on the defensive.

But these deaths are on her watch. Not enough was done to get the elderly vaccinated and a lot of it had to do with misinformation and ineffective communication to the public about the benefits of getting vaccinated. The cash handouts were not used as an incentive to get vaccinated either which was infuriating to say the least.

Meanwhile Dr Lau Ka-hin, a chief manager of the Health Authority was also on the defensive, saying officials were not focused on death records, that the goal was to prevent patients with only mild symptoms from worsening and serious cases turning into fatalities.

"This is our aim in treating our patients," he said.

More seniors need to get jabbed quickly

Sing Tao reported this morning the possibility of further restricting social-distancing measures to only one per table instead of two.

Lam denied this was in the cards, but then again she has been known to flip flop. Her response: "I have to consider what society and the public can accept and won't rashly introduce new measures," she said. "But I again appeal to the public not to let their guard down. Even though the case numbers seem to have stabilised and there is a slight downward trend, it is not time to relax yet."

Indeed... but we hope there is a greater effort being made to inoculate the elderly as quickly as possible. We don't want to see another morbid record tomorrow...