Cases Coming Down, Anti-Epidemic Kits Arriving

Lam presenting the anti-epidemic kits at the press conference

I'm hearing from many friends and colleagues about their experiences of contracting Covid-19 and many have no idea where they got it from.

Some said they had stayed home most of the time, only going out for groceries and other supplies. As all of them are vaccinated (Sinovac or BioNTech), many reported the sore throat was the worst part of having Covid, as some didn't even have a fever, but flu-like symptoms such as aches and pains. 

It took on average about eight days or so before they became negative, but the whole experience especially in the beginning left them exhausted and they had to rest a lot. 

People putting together anti-epidemic kits

One says since her recovery about three weeks ago, she feels like her lung capacity is not like before, while another reported losing his sense of smell and taste and it has taken a few weeks for it to return; that really worried him as he enjoys not only his food but wine too.

All these people have experienced Covid in the last few weeks and it is only now that the Hong Kong government has announced that it will distribute anti-epidemic packs to every household starting from next month and hopes to complete the deliveries within a week.

Each pack contains 20 rapid antigen tests, 20 KN95 masks, and Chinese medicine from across the border.

"Things inside are mainly resources the central government gave Hong Kong in support, to show their motherland's care and support for Hong Kong compatriots," acting home affairs minister Jack Chan Jick-chi told a press conference.

He said the packs will be handed out through the Housing Authority, building management firms, the Heung Yee Kuk and volunteer groups.

And if anyone doesn't get a pack, they can get one from collection points that will be set up later, Chan added.

Where is Hong Kong's Lion Rock spirit? 

While it's nice to know the central government cares for Hong Kong residents, how come we are only getting these supplies now when at least half the population has already been infected with Covid-19?

This would have been helpful at least three weeks ago when the number of cases were rising exponentially and items like rapid antigen kits were hard to find or very expensive. Now they can be bought at around HK$30 (US$3.83) for one test. 

But yes, we should be grateful, like Hong Kong government and health officials who reiterate their thanks over and over again to Beijing for all the assistance.

Whatever happened to the Lion Rock spirit and Hongkongers self-subsisting?

Probably not part of the "one country, two systems" mandate...

Today there were 10,401 infection cases -- the lowest drop in a month, while the number of deaths recorded in the past 24 hours was 162, and 30 backlogged.

Covid-19 Cases Could Jump Exponentially after CNY

There may be a spike in Covid-19 cases after Chinese New Year

The number of Covid-19 cases keep climbing in Hong Kong, with 142 cases recorded today, and 160 preliminary positive.

Most worrying are the untraceable cases with experts stunned as to how to track down their sources. And with the Lunar New Year public holidays coming to a close, in the next few days there could be a possible explosion of cases after people gathered with their families during the most important festival in the calendar.

Chuang (left) urges people not to meet for CNY

"We are worried because we may see hundreds or more cases as the Omicron variant is more transmissible. It poses a huge burden on the health care system," Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, of the Centre for Health Protection said today in the media briefing.

"We also have seen some airborne transmission reported from some family gatherings, and we urge people to stay at home."

In general this is true -- some families have opted not to meet up, while others have had muted gatherings. There are also reports of people receiving fewer laisee or lucky money than in previous years because they are worried about meeting people.

However, respiratory disease specialist Dr Leung Chi-chiu finds the number of untraceable cases worrying and suggests the government should hand out more fast-testing kits in the community, saying the city doesn't have the capacity to do large-scale testing.

But Chuang refuted this, saying the current lockdown of certain buildings was effective enough and that the authorities would continue to identify high-risk areas through confirmed cases and sewage tests.

Jeff Leung first senior official to get Covid-19

Of the new infections recorded today one was identified as Jeff Leung Wing-yan, Deputy Commissioner of Labour (Occupational Safety and Health). He is the first senior government official to be infected with the coronavirus.

In addition, people trying to get their business completed with government departments will have to be more patient, as the work from home arrangement will be extended for all 170,000 civil servants aside from those serving essential and anti-epidemic services until February 11.

As a result a number of government departments will limit services, such as inland revenue, labour, civil engineering and development, information services, building, drainage services, social welfare, and electrical and mechanical services, as well as the Housing Authority, Education Bureau, and Hongkong Post.

In the case of the last one, air mail stopped for many countries anyway, but this just shuts the city down even further.

Tonight the government issued another notice, concerned about Covid-19 spreading in Hong Kong.

Dr Leung suggests more testing kits to people

"The Delta and Omicron mutant strains are spreading in the community at the same time, posing unprecedented threat to Hong Kong," said a government spokesman. 

"The epidemic situation of the fifth wave may be more severe than that of the previous four waves. Members of the public are urged to stay vigilant, wear masks properly and get vaccinated as early as possible in order to greatly reduce the risk of falling seriously ill and death when infected. With the concerted co-operation of the public in fighting the epidemic, Hong Kong will surely overcome the current epidemic situation."

Sounds like a hunker down in the bunker kind of message...

Tiniest Subsidised Flats for Sale

The subsidised flats occupy the former airport at Kai Tak

The Hong Kong Housing Authority's mandate is to provide affordable rental housing to low-income families with housing needs, and to help low- to middle-income families gain access to subsidised home ownership.

That's what it says in its website.

However next year's batch of subsidised homes the authority will sell will be as small as 186 square feet -- the equivalent of one and a half car parking spaces, the tiniest flats to be offered since the start of the Home Ownership Scheme in 1978.

The smallest flats will be 186 sq ft

The 320 small units are on the site of the former airport at Kai Tak, among the 8,925 subsidised flats to be for sale in the first quarter of next year.

About 30 percent of the new batch are smaller than 322 sq ft. Such flats are increasingly making up a bigger portion of the authority's supply, accounting for 22 percent in 2020, and 15 percent in 2019.

Francis Lam Ka-fai, vice-president of the Institute of Surveyors and its spokesman on housing policy said that while he supported the 49 percent discounts on the units, he slammed the micro-flats on offer, saying they had "become a joke".

"That's really undesirable. Why did [the authority] go for such small units? I don't know what their rationale is," he said. "In terms of the design, [anything] less than 200 sq ft is really undesirable for anybody." 

We fully agree.

The tiny flats may look like this. Appealing to you?

And to even qualify for this scheme, a single person can have a monthly salary of no more than HK$34,730 and assets worth no more than HK$925,000, while for households of two or more people, they must earn no more than $69,740 and own assets worth less than HK$1.85 million.

Who wants to live in 186 sq ft discounted HK$1.24 million (US$158,900)? What can you even fit in there? Can someone really live happily in such a tiny place? And they would have to live in it for 15 years before being allowed to sell it. 

If the government wants to encourage a higher birthrate, it really needs to build bigger subsidised flats to start with. How can one even get married let alone have children in 186 sq ft? Have these housing officials even seen how tiny that space is? 

It boggles the mind...

Fact of the Day: Over Five-Year Wait for Public Housing

Lam suggested the Housing Authority build flats faster

Why do low-income residents have to wait an average of 5.8 years for public housing in Hong Kong?

How could this problem not be tackled effectively by each successive Chief Executive and now the wait time is the longest it has been in more than 20 years?

In addition, Beijing is getting impatient and demanding this problem, and including that of notorious caged homes be solved in the next few years.

Lam wants to develop this land into new CBD

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has suggested developing New Territories North to build not only housing but also create the new CBD near the border with Shenzhen. If this area is to be the new "Central district", will low-income earners be able to afford a flat where the new Landmark will be?

On Sunday she tried to shift the blame on the Housing Authority, which is a government agency, saying the government hands out cash subsidies to those who have been waiting for low-income housing for more than three years. 

"The cash subsidies are currently paid by the government, but why shouldn't they be [paid by] the Housing Authority? If you build the estates slowly, you will have to pay [more].

"I hope that they will be motivated to build them faster, at least one or two months quicker.

"Establishing a more substantial sense of accountability is an important part of improving governance."

She also suggested they could use prefabricated materials to build the flats faster.

No sooner had Lam said this did she rile up the Housing Authority, which in turn blamed the government for the shortage of suitable land.

Beijing wants cage home problem solved asap

Raymond Chan Yuk-ming, a member of the authority's building committee, told a radio program earlier in the day that land handed over to the statutory body was little more than "pig skulls" -- a Cantonese expression for unwanted cast-offs -- adding the body was forced to "accept them with tears".

He also went on that officials were forced to "spend a lot of time" responding to neighbourhood concerns about public flats being built on cramped or ecologically sensitive sites.

The claws are out.

To do some damage control, Lam blamed the media (how convenient) for creating quarrels, and that disputes were not constructive. 

Then she went on to praise the authority for building 96,500 new flats in the past four years -- a 50 percent increase from the previous five-year period.

Would a Chief Executive backpedal if she were not going to run again?

In the meantime we're back where we started. 

Again why is it that low-income residents must wait an average of 5.8 years for public housing in Hong Kong?

 

Out in Force

 

Some 40,000 people turned out for a civil servants' rally at Chater Garden

Organizers say 40,000 people turned out for the civil servants' rally at Chater Garden in Central tonight. It started at 7pm but there were already lots of people streaming into the public space an hour before.

There was also a rally at Edinburgh Place near the Central post office for healthcare professionals. They chant "Save lives, save Hong Kong". It is the second time this group of people have held a assembly to voice their frustration with the government along with issues like not enough protection of patients' privacy in public hospitals and police allegedly obstructing first-aid workers at protest scenes.

Earlier there was another one for healthcare professionals

Last Friday some 1,500 gathered at Queen Elizabeth Hospital to condemn the mob violence in Yuen Long on July 21.

Earlier in the day Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung warned civil servants to remain politically neutral. He warned them not to participate in the rally, saying they should not "do things in contrast with the government's views".

However, after more than eight weeks of no resolution in sight and escalating violence, thousands of them defied him and many interviewed by reporters said they were joining the rally as ordinary citizens during their off-work hours.

It was easy to tell the turnout was going to be huge this evening. At 7.20pm the Central MTR station was packed with people, mostly dressed in black T-shirts and walking towards Exit J where Chater Garden is. Partway through the large station, the massive crowd stopped because there were so many people slowed down by the turnstile exits. 

A massive crowd inching toward the exit in the MTR station

Slowly the mass of people inched forward and despite it being rush hour period, no one complained and calmly made their way to the exits. It was obvious they were all there for the same event. Outside police tried to keep the crowds from spilling out into Des Voeux Road, and for the most part everyone obeyed.

One well respected former chief secretary who came out to support the civil servants was Anson Chan Fang On-sang. She came out to speak at the rally, admiring those with the conscience and moral courage to come out despite the government's "stern and apparently intimidating statement" on Thursday night.

"To cultivate a civil service that is excellent and efficient at work, that has high morale, that adheres to political neutrality, we not only need civil servants to be loyal to their duties," Chan says. "More importantly, the chief executive and her leadership team must protect institutional justice and answer people's demands."

Former chief secretary Anson Chan addressing the crowd

A woman handed out a thick leaflet stapled together, listing the various government departments that were participating in the rally: the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Civil Engineering and Development Department, Hong Kong Housing Authority, Dental Surgeons, Dental Surgery Assistants and Dental Hygienists under the Department of Health and Lands Department, and Clerical staff of the Hospital Authority. 

Political scientist Joseph Chan Cho-wai of the University of Hong Kong took to the stage. He said he told senior government officials a few weeks ago there were only two ways to handle the protests -- to reform or to suppress.

"When public grievances sweep like floods, you either divert the water or build a dam. It's a pity that the government chose the dam," Joseph Chan says. "But a dam built with police using force, triad intimidating people, outdated laws and Beijing's intervention cannot stop this flood."

He said civil servants' duty is not to defend the dam, but the institutions protecting rule of law, justice and freedom. "Priority of rule of law is to constrain the government from abusing power," he says. "Civil servants should defend this tradition."

Protesters spilled onto Des Voeux Road by HSBC

Before 8.30pm the crowds had spilled onto Des Voeux Road so buses and other vehicles (except trams) had no choice but to go to Queens Road Central, causing a giant traffic jam. It also started to rain lightly, prompting everyone to open their umbrellas and huddle together.

Surely with such a turnout tonight, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has lost a big chunk of support from her own civil service? Does she even care?

Meanwhile inside the MTR station, there were people holding signs to encourage residents to take part in the general strike planned for this Monday.

How many people will join in? Apparently disruptions on the MTR will start at 7.30am, and massive rallies to be held in seven locations simultaneously from 1pm onwards.

CARRIE! WHERE ARE YOU?

Stateless Kids in the City

For nine years, Siu Yau-wai (right) has lived in Hong Kong illegally

Last month, a 15-year-old girl jumped to her death from her parents' flat in Repulse Bay. It was later discovered the daughter of a senior British executive and his Filipina partner, did not have a birth certificate. And as a result, she and her younger sister didn't have Hong Kong Identity Cards and weren't able to go to school.

This brought into question how many other children there are in the city like this and another case turned up this week.

In 2006, a grandmother brought her three-year-old grandson across the border from Shenzhen after his parents abandoned him. They decided he was a "bad omen" after his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and the father lost an arm in an industrial accident.

They apparently left Siu Yau-wai in a "paper box" on the mainland shortly after he was born, and their whereabouts is unknown.

The 15-year-old girl's parents who didn't register her or sister

How the grandmother, Chow Siu-Shuen, found her grandson three years later has not been clarified, but nevertheless she took the boy back to Hong Kong using another child's ID card and two-way permit.

The boy, Yau-wai, now 12, has spent his childhood in a small public flat in Kwun Tong with his 67-year-old grandmother and grandfather, 80.

They lived in constant fear because he didn't have any papers, so they were terrified of letting anyone in their flat. If someone from the Housing Authority or census staff came, the boy would escape down the back stairwell to the park below, Chow said.

While she home schooled him, Yau-wai liked to read and would only go to the library at night "to avoid crowds", and could not borrow books because of his lack of status, nor could he see the doctor when he was ill. His grandmother would resort to home remedies or take him to see a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, as ID cards are not necessary.

The boy said he had friends, but none knew he didn't go to school, and neither did their neighbours.

But after reading about the tragic circumstances around the 15-year-old girl's suicide, Chow decided it was in the best interests of Yau-wai to turn herself in and hand him over to the authorities.

Chow was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting others in breach of condition of stay, and was granted bail, while the boy was given an identification document allowing him to stay for four weeks, subject to renewal.

"We must now face the reality. We know there may be legal consequences," said the retired grandmother. "If I die one day and he does not have documentation... he will have no way to live."

Yau-wai was assessed and found to have primary three education level, about four years younger than him.

For now Chow and her grandson are free to walk the streets without fear, but what's next? Should he be allowed to stay in Hong Kong?

If he is granted permanent residency, there are fears that many other children who are in similar cases to Yau-wai or the teenager in Repulse Bay will start coming forward. How many really are there in the city?

It also seems not enough is done to enforce the Births and Deaths Registration Ordinance, that while staff may try to follow up on cases that haven't registered, they are not persistent enough and feel the onus is on the parents, who have a year to do the right thing.

However, the media has found there were 543 children from July 1997 to March this year who were registered after the children turned one, with 71 cases since 1997 that were not registered.

If you register a child 42 days after birth, the birth certificate is free, otherwise you have to pay HK$140. After one year it jumps to HK$680.

The story of Yau-wai seems strange, as how would his grandmother know where to find him three years later if he was abandoned in a cardboard box? A quick DNA test would verify their relationship.

But in the meantime, is Hong Kong going to see a flood of children coming out of the woodwork to claim residency?

Should be interesting and we'll only know once Yau-wai's situation is cleared up.