Hong Kong Now World's Worst in Covid Deaths

Patients are back outside hospitals, no space and warmer temps

Hong Kong was one of the best places in keeping Covid-19 at bay for two years, and now it is the worst.

Today the city logged another record 56,827 positive cases, and a shocking 144 deaths in the past 24 hours, ranging in age from 42 to 102 years old. While 56 of them lived in elderly care homes, 124 of them were not vaccinated.

The rising line is the number of HK deaths

Up until the beginning of February this year, Hong Kong had hardly any deaths and now it is at 17.3 deaths per 1 million people. 

When comparing Hong Kong to New York City via @kjoules:

Most cases in a day per 1 million people

NY 6,621 (January 3, 2022)

HK 7,676 (Today)

Most deaths in a day per 1 million people

NY 67.9 (Before vaccines April 7, 2020)

NY 15.0 (After vaccines January 11, 2022)

HK 25.1 (Today)

Meanwhile the government and advisers are still deciding about implementing universal testing. Today Dr Yuen Kwok-yuen admitted that the window for inoculating the elderly has passed and that conducting universal testing will only find too many cases and not enough places to isolate them all.

Other experts questioning the need to do testing in March also include Ben Cowling, Gabriel Leung, Leung Chi-chiu, and Ho Pak-leung. 

There is still no consensus or final announcement on how universal testing, which is supposed to start on March 26 will be done. The government says there will be 500 testing centres so that people will not have to wait too long, and these testing centres will be located in schools (that are not used because students have been forced into an early "summer vacation".

Yuen admits HK should have vaccinated elderly

Currently there are only 19 testing areas in the city, and another 43 mobile ones operated by contractors. Are there even enough staff to conduct tests at all 500 sites?

Apparently when people go for the three tests -- in family groups -- they will receive KN95 masks and rapid testing kits to screen between tests. All our nostrils will be extra sensitive after this is all over with. 

It was also reported that some 1,000 prisoners have caught Covid, including democracy activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho Chun-yan. They tested positive after using the rapid antigen tests but currently show no symptoms. 

As a result of the positive cases, lawyers will not be able to visit their clients in the next two weeks, while loved ones and families of the detained cannot see them for another one and a half months.

Isolation units with bars on the windows...

And then there are the isolation units being built... apparently it is four to a room -- how is that even social distancing? Squat toilets (and now some Western ones we have been told) -- and mainland Chinese electricity sockets. No one alerted the mainland contractors that Hong Kong uses the British sockets.

So if you do end up in one of these isolation trailers with three other strangers, at least bring a multi-plug adapter with you...

Health Minister Reiterates Zero-Covid Goal

Chan rebukes those who think zero-Covid is "unattainable"

The claws were out when Secretary for Health Sophia Chan Siu-mee admonished a leading epidemiologist for criticizing the Hong Kong government's latest policy change of having patients who have recovered from Covid-19 to do another two weeks in a designated quarantine hospital.

Chan said the University of Hong Kong's Ben Cowling, who is public health expert, was wrong to call the measure "unethical", as he was going against the government's zero-Covid goal, which was "in line with the aspirations of our community".

Cowling says new policy wastes resources

She also suggested his criticisms of the policy were based on a flawed premise.

Ouch.

"Questioning longer isolation of patients to further reduce risk of virus shedding is premised on a small risk being acceptable," Chan said.

"This goes against the government's zero-Covid goal, which aims to prevent importation of cases and spread of the virus in the community. More importantly, measures taken by the government for the community's interest must not be called 'unethical'."

As of Wednesday, all recovered Covid-19 patients must go through another 14 days of quarantine at North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre, which means spending a minimum of 24 days in treatment and post-discharge quarantine before being allowed to go home. 

Chan said the new rules were designed to "further minimize any residual risk of discharged patients shedding virus in the community", adding such a threat "admittedly is low but not zero".

Lantau North Hospital takes recovered patients

Two days earlier, Cowling, who is currently going through 21 days' quarantine, went on Twitter to say the new policy was a "waste of resources and actively harming the patient with no community benefit to offset against". He also said the policy was not medically justified.

Chan said she respected his opinion but disagreed with academics who considered zero-Covid "unattainable, unsustainable or unworthy".

"It is understandable that they perceive our stringent but necessary measures to maintain zero-Covid as harsh," she added. "However, zero-Covid is our best strategy not only on public health but also social and economic considerations, and is in line with the aspirations of our community."

What are the aspirations of our community? Do they really want zero-Covid, or they are willing to live with the virus?

Let's take a referendum on this -- oh wait we can't.

So Chan is assuming she is speaking for the majority of "our community" that we all want zero-Covid.

Do Hongkongers want zero-Covid too?

It's interesting she has sharply rebuked Cowling, but it's Chan's demonstration of her towing the government's line that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor so desperately wants to show Beijing that Hong Kong can achieve zero-Covid to open the border.

Hong Kong practically has zero cases except for imported ones. If anything Lam could and should boost the vaccination rate, particularly among the elderly. We are all waiting for more stringent measures to take place, but nothing yet so far... 

Even Stricter Covid-19 Policies Baffles Expert

Hong Kong is closing loopholes in quarantine exemptions

Starting from today, anyone who was infected with Covid-19 and is discharged from hospital, must spend another 14 days in isolation and health monitoring.

The recovered patients will be sent to North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre for two weeks.

Beds at the newly opened North Lantau Hospital 

This new rule is one of the ways the Hong Kong government hopes to reopen the border with the mainland, though this latest policy comes into effect as it was revealed there is a shortage of health care staff in public hospitals.

Epidemiologist Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health said the new policy was "ridiculous" and "unethical" on his Twitter posts.

He wrote that the policy was a "waste of resources and actively harming the patient with no community benefit to offset against."

"That makes it unethical surely," he said as he himself is undergoing quarantine. "I hope it doesn't also apply to 're-positives', that would be even more ridiculous."

Cowling, a leading infectious disease expert, added there were no known cases around the world where a recovered, or even a re-positive case, had triggered a community outbreak.

Cowling says extra isolation is "ridiculous"

"The previous policy is that people who have Covid are put in isolation until doctors are confident that they've recovered and they're no longer contagious -- they're no longer a threat -- if they're discharged," he said.

"That's happened more than 10,000 times, throughout more than 10,000 discharged cases back into Hong Kong. There have never been any report of any recovered case triggering a community outbreak and that's the same as the rest of the world."

Meanwhile the Patients' Rights Association, a group advocating medical causes with a focus on underprivileged residents, warned that authorities risked discouraging low-income patients from getting tested for fear of being locked up for a sustained period of time without pay.

"The government should remove economic disincentives for poor people to seek medical help, either in the form of direct subsidies, or by asking the Community Care Fund or charities to step in to help," the association's Tim Pang Hung-cheong said Wednesday.

"The city's low-income residents who are just getting by cannot afford to lose a day's income, and might even lose their jobs due to a long absence from work."

Pang worries low-income earners will lose jobs

This latest policy change is one of several the government has pitched in a bid to ease Beijing's fears and result in reopening the border with the mainland.

Other initiatives include revoking quarantine exemption privileges to people such as diplomats, business executives of listed companies, truck drivers, crew members of fishing vessels, certified accountants, and cruise ship crew.

While there are debates about what the science says and what Hong Kong will do to placate Beijing -- even though it recorded 50 new cases today and Hong Kong has had zero cases for the past 19 days -- it is more and more apparent which strategy the city is leaning towards to keep Covid-19 at bay...

More Reasons to get BioNTech Jab

More evidence shows BioNTech more effective than Sinovac

 

If there was more reason to get inoculated, a new study shows that those who had taken the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine had 10 times more antibodies than those who got the Sinovac jab, who generated "similar or lower" than naturally occurring ones seen in recovered patients.

The study by the University of Hong Kong and published in Lancet Microbe, suggested perhaps those who received the Sinovac vaccine could get a BioNTech booster shot to protect against Covid-19.

Cowling is one of the authors of the HKU study

Experts say higher levels of antibodies detected seem to correspond with long-lasting and stronger protection against infection.

One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ben Cowling, said that if BioNTech booster shots are offered, those who took Sinovac should be first in line to get the vaccine. He added they may need to get the shots sooner as he was concerned antibodies may not be detectable in those people after three to six months.

He dismissed suggestions that the Hong Kong government should not have purchased the Sinovac vaccines, saying having a vaccine was better than none, and that vaccines like Sinovac had saved many lives around the world.

"If there's a choice between not getting vaccinated and getting Sinovac, it's definitely much, much better to get Sinovac because there is protection against infection and there's a high level of protection against severe disease," he said.

Cowling says Sinovac is better than no vaccine

"In Hong Kong, when we're thinking about the alternatives, I would advise if you can get the BioNTech vaccine, get the BioNTech vaccine. I've said that all along, because it's a more effective vaccine, gives a higher protection of vaccine tat will likely last much longer.

"But if for some reason you can't receive the BioNTech vaccine, or there's another reason you don't want to get the BioNTech vaccine, still it's better to get the Sinovac vaccine than to not get vaccinated."

Hope that scientific reasoning will inspire more people to get vaccinated -- preferably with BioNTech.

So far over 36.9 percent of the population has had at least one jab, and just over 26 percent are fully vaccinated.