The Good News, Bad News

Many people took advantage of the opportunity to get the jab

 

This morning a lot of people in Hong Kong signed up for the vaccine online now that the government has allowed people from the age of 30 upwards to get it, as well as domestic helpers, and students 16 years and older who are studying overseas.

The process was relatively efficient, though if you spent time reading through all the precautionary measures and possible side effects, then you wasted precious time getting the dates and times you wanted.

Now people over 30 are eligible to get vaccinated

Nevertheless some of these people are getting the jab as early as this Friday and are only too excited, showing off their confirmation emails on social media.

Today there were 18 cases recorded, five imported, and five more added to the growing gym cluster to 127.

Yesterday University of Hong Kong microbiologist Ho Pak-leung complained that the government's LeaveHomeSafe app is not working effectively to notify people if they had been in the same place at the same time as an infected person.

"The 100 or so people must have gone out for dining in the past 10 days. We are not seeing there's any improvement in contact tracing on that front. Although many people have installed the LeaveHomeSafe, the app seems not to have fully shown its effectiveness," he said.

A friend told me her three colleagues went to the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong recently, one used the app, the other two wrote down the contact details. In the end it was the latter two who were notified by the hotel and not the one who used LeaveHomeSafe!

Leung said if there is a delay in tracking down people there could be more clusters forming from restaurants, which we have seen here and there, with places like Zuma, Somm, Mandarin Bar + Grill, Arabica and Tree House just to name a few.

Dr Ho worries tracing app is not effective enough

There is also the concern that new infections won't show up for about two weeks too.

The chance to get a vaccine can't come fast enough.

Meanwhile Hong Kong is facing its highest unemployment rate since 2004 at 7.2 percent. That means more than 261,000 people are out of a job, 8,300 more than before.

The sectors most affected are tourism, hospitality and retail, while the food and beverage area has improved slightly. 

Back in 2003 the jobless rate was 8.5 percent during SARS, but that was for about four or five months, compared to now being well over a year. 

If that wasn't bad enough news, the government has approved fare hikes for buses by as much as 12 percent.

With bus fares going up, will more take the tram?

This is hard to understand because during the pandemic last year till now the frequency of the buses have decreased significantly, making people wait longer for buses or they are more packed. 

Fares for Citybus and New World First Bus will go up 12 percent in two phases, one in April the next in January, while Kowloon Motor Bus can charge 8.5 percent more, and New Lantao Bus company can raise fares by 9.8 percent.

However Long Win Bus, which runs bus services to the airport will not see an increase in fares as the government believes travel will come back soon...

At the same time the government is increasing the public transport subsidy to HK$500 per person, up from the current HK$100 and as long as people spend at least HK$200 on public transport per month.

Maybe -- just maybe -- this may push some people to use the tram and the Star Ferry more often.

Or in my case, walk more.

HK Bars Reopen, Hotels Frantically Keep Up

 

Many people were happy to be back in a bar to have drinks

 

Tonight bars and karaoke lounges are open for the first time in over two months since the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit. There were reports business was brisk in Lan Kwai Fong, above it on Wyndham Street, and along Soho, near the Mid-Levels escalator.

For the most part people complied to social-distancing measures of two per table and businesses including restaurants will have to close at midnight, two hours later than before.

It's just the latest loosening of restrictions that the city is adjusting to, and there are hopes the catering industry will be able re-coup some of its losses, though one wonders if things will ever get back to pre-pandemic levels.

Some people, like my friend YTSL have gotten used to not going to bars and wasn't particularly keen on going back right away. As research has proven, if you do something for at least three weeks straight, it becomes a habit, and for some, there is no need to visit their drinking hole anymore.

Long line for afternoon tea at the Grand Hyatt

Meanwhile hotels may have been quiet for months because they have had hardly any visitors, but behind the scenes staff have been very busy. 

One public relations person who works in a hotel on Hong Kong island told me how these days it feels like they are waging a war everyday, as in having to be extremely agile and constantly adapting to the latest government regulations.

Another hotel person told me of having to constantly update the hotel signage, messages to guests in rooms, websites and social media of the latest changes in dining hours, or the number of people allowed, and so on. 

All the hotels have been suffering terribly since the pandemic hit in late January, and at one point the occupancy rate was at single digits, when pre-pandemic it was in the 80 to 90 percent range. This compares to hotels in say New York, that consider 65 percent occupancy a very good day. So you can see hotels in Hong Kong have been spoiled for a long time.

These days a decent occupancy rate in the city is in the 20 percent range, and more recently it can climb up to 35 percent on weekends with staycations.

As a result, hotel staff, particularly those in sales and marketing are under the gun to come up with interesting packages and promotions to lure local residents in to dine and stay.

Some have offers of unbeatable prices, while others have staycation packages that include dining credits, or even all three meals sorted during their stay, like The Peninsula. After all, it's a way for guests to sample more restaurant outlets in the hotel, and for the kitchen staff to keep occupied.

In particular the pastry departments in several top hotels have been frantically busy with afternoon tea takeaway sets. Why nibble on finger sandwiches and eat scones in the hotel when you can do it in the safety of your own home?  

Granted you have to go to the hotel and pick them up, but that hasn't deterred hundreds of people from doing that. A few weeks ago there was a picture on social media of a massive line of people at the Grand Hyatt waiting to collect their afternoon tea sets for takeaway. 

Some hotels even specifically designed a special multi-tiered cardboard box that can easily be carried by the handle. 

Assembling afternoon tea sets at Four Seasons

But again back to the pastry chefs. Typically they may make 30, 50, at most 100 afternoon tea sets a day. These days they are making up to 300 tea sets a day.

They commandeer a function room because they aren't being used anyway, and there they set up tables with afternoon tea sets being assembled like a factory. 

The hotels aren't making that much money off these sets -- the prices have to be competitive, but at the same time taste good and have good packaging otherwise people will be disappointed if things have fallen apart by the time they get home.

While staycations keep rooms occupied, guests are only staying one night, whereas previously visitors would stay three to four nights. So everyone from the reception desk is busy checking in and checking out people everyday, and the housekeeping staff are constantly cleaning rooms after a night's stay.

And then there are guests who get wild and trash the room, like what happened at The Peninsula last week. A video was posted on social media of a room that was celebrating someone's birthday, but it was a complete mess. Someone's going to get a big bill for that.

 <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Video doing the social media rounds from The Peninsula Hong Kong of how guests trashed the room.<br><br>Staycations are getting a bit out of hand. <a href="https://t.co/peYgMhGzbr">pic.twitter.com/peYgMhGzbr</a></p>&mdash; Aaron 🇦🇺🇮🇩🇻🇳🇹🇭🇭🇰 (@tripperhead) <a href="https://twitter.com/tripperhead/status/1304751607356166144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Now that swimming pools are open, hotels immediately got inquiries if their pool would be open too? Many changed their reservations as soon as they heard pools would open today. But how do you (politely) control the number of people who go in and out of the pool without upsetting guests as the government has mandated it should be at half capacity.

Yet another dilemma hotels have to deal with...