Stocked Public Fridges for the Poor

A public fridge where people can freely take what they need 

More and more people are starving in Hong Kong thanks to the coronavirus pandemic that has forced them to lose their jobs and businesses and scrounge for food.

Wong Wai-kit tried to help some by giving them his takeaway meal.

"I tried not to make them feel they were a bunch of poor and miserable people waiting for my almsgiving. They had their dignity," said Wong, 40, who has founded several social enterprises that help the underprivileged and unemployed.

He came up with the idea in August of setting up stocked-up fridges in various public locations for anyone in need, for free.

The growing number of poor rises each year

The "Gift n Take" fridge project began in places like Dragon Centre shopping centre in Sham Shui Po and Eaton HK hotel in Jordan. A group of 20 volunteers fill the fridges every two to three days with dry food and provisions donated by NGOs, individuals and retail outlets.

As soon as the project started the fridges were cleaned out as fast as the volunteers could fill them, and now there are fridges in 40 locations across Hong Kong, including restaurants, schools, shopping centres and retail stores.

"I noticed a rising number of people who suddenly lost their livelihoods because of the tough social-distancing curbs. They feel helpless without anyone to turn to," Wong said.

"I hope to let them know people do care and are willing to help."

He has also helped some people find part-time work.

Charities and NGOs are seeing a spike in people looking for free meals, including young people.

In 2020, 19,438 people sought help getting food, a 48 percent increase from 13,142 in 2019. The number rose to 21,987 last year.

One of Wong's partners is Martin China Ka-shun, founder of social enterprise Amity, which distributes provisions to the poor in Sheung Shui, including those staying in sub-divided flats and elderly people living alone.

A public fridge can be found at Eaton HK hotel

"Most don't want to apply for social welfare or support from food banks as the application takes at least eight weeks," he said. 

"They don't have the money to pay for food, so we hope to help them survive this difficult period."

Fifty-eight-year-old Tong Shing-choi lost his job as a casual cleaner and delivery worker in late January when the companies he worked for temporarily closed.

Divorced and living alone in Mongkok in a sub-divided room that costs HK$2,700 (US$344.83) a month in rent, Tong said he had to borrow money from friends to get by. For him the fridge project, along with meal coupons he received from NGOs have made him less miserable about his situation.

"I rely on free meals from a charity group for survival. I got to the fridge from time to time for some canned food, cakes and instant noodles to fill my stomach, but I don't want to ask for more as I feel ashamed," he said.

Tong said he didn't want to apply for welfare help, as he hoped he could get another job again.

"I really feel gloomy and depressed, but help from Brother Kit [Wong] and other NGOs let me know that at least I don't need to worry about my daily meals."

Where is Lam's compassion for those in need?

Thank goodness for these NGOs and social enterprises for stepping up and helping those who were living pay cheque to pay cheque and now the pandemic has made their lives a daily struggle for survival.

Meanwhile what is the government doing to help these people? They did not become poor out of choice - it's up to the authorities to give them the help they need. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has a background in social work and yet has no compassion for these people, whose population is growing by the day.

If Hong Kong is going to pull out of this pandemic -- and Lam will drag the city out if she has to -- she needs to also make sure people are not starving to death before then.

Have we really reverted to the real meaning of 吃饭了没有？

By the way the number of cases has gone down to below 8,000 at 7,860 today and 168 deaths, of which 143 are new, 25 backlogged.

Covid Deaths Overwhelm System

This shocking photo of body bags was released on social media

This horrific photograph went viral on Twitter today. It was taken about a week ago at the Accident and Emergency Ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Jordan, where there are six dead bodies in body bags lying in wards where there are three elderly patients.

The image was confirmed by a medic who works in the hospital. Since that picture was taken, the situation has been alleviated with more refrigerator units and mortuaries made available.

When the media asked about the photo this afternoon, the Health Authority's Sara Ho Yuen-ha confirmed it and apologised for the stress it had caused patients.

Ho apologised for the distress to the patients

"The authority is facing an unprecedented challenge... we are very sorry about bringing distress to patients. Our colleagues are also very unhappy about the situation. We hope everyone understands," she said.

Nevertheless it clearly illustrates how overwhelmed the Hong Kong healthcare system is and there is no end in sight with over 15000 people dying from Covid-19 per day, the majority of them elderly.

Another bottleneck has emerged in processing all the paperwork for each deceased person, while funeral homes are booked up until at least mid-April.

Kwok Hoi-bong, chairman of the Funeral Business Association industry group, said the government had to do more to resolve bottlenecks.

"Even though the government has increased the capacity of cremation incinerators to between 260 to 280 corpses a day, it has not given thought to other areas," he told a radio program.

He pointed out there are only 121 funeral halls in the city, but the average death toll was 200 dead per day.

Kwok says deaths are taking longer to process

Kwok said the authority should allow simple ceremonies to be performed in service halls in the hospital to allow families to bid their final farewells before taking the corpses to the crematorium or cemetery. 

While this will alleviate the logistics, there are families who insist in a proper send-off to loved ones. 

He also said death certificates used to take three to four days to be processed and now took six to eight, meaning corpses not being removed in a more timely manner.

Today Hong Kong recorded 29,377 local cases, 18,884 from PCR tests, 10,493 from RAT. There were 294 deaths logged, 196 from the past 24 hours, 98 backlogged. The age rage was 35-105, of the 196 dead, 114 were unvaccinated, 97 from residential care homes.

Currently only 54 percent of Hong Kong residents 80 years and older have had at least one jab. The government has pledged to focus on inoculating elderly people with mobility issues who live on their own. This alarm was sounded months ago by health experts, but the advice was not heeded... 

Hong Kong Worries of Mutant Strain Spread

Health workers tested residents in this building in Jordan

 

The latest update on the coronavirus pandemic in Hong Kong is not good. Today the city logged 30 cases, 29 of which were imported, 22 of which were from India.

And reported today, shocking news of 47 passengers on a Vistara flight on April 4 from New Delhi to Hong Kong tested positive for the virus. Needless to say that airline, and from April 20 any flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines are banned from coming into Hong Kong for 14 days.

A mutant strain of the virus may be spreading

There are concerns the supposed tests they took before boarding were either false negative, or completely fake. They were found to be positive while in hotel quarantine. Four other cases today were from Indonesia, and one each from Egypt, Canada and the Philippines.

One new local case was a 31-year-old woman who is friends with a man who was reported yesterday to be the first locally to carry the N501Y mutant strain of the virus. It was discovered she was positive while in government quarantine and was a close contact of the man.

The 29-year-old man is an engineer who works in Dubai, came back to the city on March 19 and finished his quarantine on April 8, during which he tested negative.

After he finished the three-week quarantine, he went to stay with his friend, the woman who is the latest local case. He also ate in a restaurant in the basement of Chungking Mansions, and visited two banks on Nathan Road. He also went to Cheung Chau and ate seafood there.

Chan says man may have been infected in Dubai

It was when he was getting ready to go back to Dubai, that he got tested for his trip and found he was positive.

"We need to know how he got infected," said Dr Sophia Chan Siu-chee, the Secretary for Food and Health. 

"We have already tightened our passenger flight suspension mechanism on April 14 because even though some countries have seen a decline in infections after starting their vaccination programs, overall, mutant strains are still spreading and that makes us nervous [about importing such cases]."

Chan said the authorities are not ruling out he may have been infected in Dubai and carried the strain in an unusually long incubation period. He may also have been infected while in the airport or in hotel quarantine.

One man recently got three jabs instead of two

There are fears the mutant strain may have spread into the general population, and so it is crucial to test all the staff in the quarantine hotel, the banks, the restaurants and in the building in Jordan he stayed in with his friend. So far residents of that building have tested negative.

And then there are some really dumb people. A 32-year-old man got his first dose of the BioNTech vaccine on March 12, then on March 28 went to a private clinic to get the Sinovac jab, then on April 11 gets his second BioNTech jab. 

Why did he do that?

Either he loves injections or is completely clueless that you don't mix vaccines. If he thinks he is covering all his bases he's got it all wrong...

Perhaps a case like this was bound to surface eventually? 

Unbelievable...

 

Was Lockdown Worth 13 Positive Cases?

Lockdown area near Jordan was crawling with health workers

 

Residents in the locked down area in Jordan are free to come and go now after over 7,000 people were tested. Of them 13 were found to have positive tests. That's a rate of 0.17 which is on the low side.

Over 7,000 were tested, 13 came up positive

Is that good or bad?

While it was good to catch those 13 cases, it seems like an extensive 48-hour ordeal that caused a lot of grief and stress.

A bit worrying is that several hundred people were not found in the door-to-door testing and one wonders if the government statistics are correct, or that many people fled before the lockdown.

Nevertheless, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee defended the move and wouldn't rule out doing something similar again.

Chan does not rule out lockdown testing again

"I think the compulsory testing and also the testing within an area with the restriction of movement is effective to identify and isolate these cases. Also the close contacts will be quarantined. So I think it's an effective method," she said.

Some critics wonder if this first lockdown was a test run to see how the public would react and using these residents -- mostly ethnic minorities -- as guinea pigs.

This compares to the beginning of the fourth wave started by the dancing cluster of mostly members of the wealthier echelon of society where they even refused to divulge where they were and with whom -- and were able to get away with not disclosing any information. 

With Covid-19 still hardly under control, Dr David Hui Shu-cheong, a government advisor on the pandemic, suggests the government quickly move to test the area around the Yau Ma Tei wholesale fruit market which is near the Jordan area. 

Hui says less notice should be given ahead of time

In a TV program Hui said he was concerned about those people who disappeared before the lockdown may be elsewhere spreading the virus, and said in future there should be less notice given to contain as many people as possible.

However, when hearing the word "lockdown", the immediate images come to mind are of the mainland Chinese ones, welding people's doors shut, or even dragging them out to the hospital which is probably what worried residents; perhaps some are refugees or illegal immigrants with language and cultural barriers.

The government also received a lot of criticism for supplying canned food when many didn't have can openers, and don't eat pork or meat. While some were forgiving, saying the authorities tried their best, others felt the authorities should know by now what Muslims and Indians eat, while elderly people had no kitchen whatsoever and were used to receiving hot meals delivered by social workers.

So it seems even social workers were left in the dark as to what was going on and couldn't reassure their clients, let alone ferry hot meals to them.

Each family got lots of instant noodles and cans

Was this whole exercise worth it in the end? Seems like a mixed bag.

In the meantime, residents who were released are celebrating by eating some decent food... they deserve it!

 

Lam's Lockdown Plans Need Tweaking

Lam addressed media this afternoon, admitted could be better

Just over a year since the first case of the coronavirus was reported in Hong Kong, the city now has over 10,000 cases and is desperately trying to clamp down on a surge in cases in the Jordan area in Yau Tsim Mong district.

Late last night the government imposed a lockdown at over 100 buildings with streets cordoned off and monitored by police. That meant people coming back late could not go home, while those in their flats could not go out.

Goal was to test 10,000 with results by Monday

Meanwhile healthcare workers went door to door testing people.

The residents in lockdown were given food but there were lots of complaints -- as Hongkongers like to do, but in this case it was quite valid. They were given instant noodles, oranges, white bread, uncooked pasta and canned items like sardines and baked beans.

Instant noodles are hardly nutritious as well as white bread, and what are residents going to cook pasta with if there's no sauce? However, government officials didn't think to ask or know that many of the elderly living in this neighbourhood don't have can openers let alone a kitchen to cook.

They usually depend on social workers to deliver hot food to them, and now they can't come in to help feed them. District councillor Owan Li said the government should have considered delivering hot meals to them.

Lots of instant noodles, oranges and canned food

Nevertheless the food they were given is such a hodge podge... how do you even make a decent meal out of that?

This afternoon Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor gave a press conference near the lockdown area, wearing a black hoodie, while Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee wore a puffy jacket -- in 25 degree weather?!

Lam admitted there was room for improvement. She said the lockdown was difficult to execute without residents knowing, as 3,000 people are involved in administering the operation, and that perhaps people would be less anxious if they knew the lockdown was only for 48 hours and that food would be provided to them, though now we know it wasn't adequate.

She also said the lockdown was nothing like those on the mainland and preferred to call the scheme "restriction testing declaration", and that it would be lifted after testing was completed.

Lam visited the area but was she welcomed?

When questioned by reporters if residents who were inconvenienced by the scheme would be compensated, particularly if they could not get to their jobs, Lam would only reply that residents were supplied with food and there was a hotline to call if they had any questions.

The aim of the lockdown -- I mean "restriction testing declaration" -- is to test 10,000 people by tonight so that they will be able to get back to work by Monday morning. Again the government is oblivious to the possibility that some people work weekends...

What is scary is that Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing reported nearly 90 percent of the sewage samples collected from 40 buildings in this area tested positive for the virus. So having them continue to live in these contaminated places is hardly ideal. 

However, where do you mover 10,000 people? And how can their sewage pipes be fixed?

Covid-19 is not going away in Hong Kong anytime soon, despite wearing your mask everyday, washing your hands and social distancing. The virus has revealed there are too many structural issues causing such a big spread of the virus...

Do We Need More Bubble Tea?

Customers wait over an hour for bubble tea at Tiger Sugar in Causeway Bay

 Would you wait over an hour for bubble tea?

It's all the craze in Hong Kong which I find bizarre as bubble tea was the drink of the 80s and now it's back again?

This bubble tea shop is social media savvy

Over a month ago a colleague told me about a shop called Tiger Sugar that opened in Causeway Bay and people were willing to wait over an hour for the drink -- even though they were wilting in the heat.

And landlords are greedily rubbing their hands together at the thought of more bubble tea brands coming to the city looking for spaces to rent.

Since July there were 62 different brands of bubble tea in Hong Kong with 282 shops.

Do we really need more?

Apparently the demand is there. These shops just need 250 sq ft to 300 sq ft preferably near schools, offices, where young people hang out like Mongkok, Jordan, Causeway Bay, Central.

And the shops are financially able to afford rents now that they have dropped about 20 percent since the peak in 2014. With rents at around HK$300 to HK$400 per sq ft, that means the total rent could be HK$90,000 to HK$120,000. That's a lot of cups of bubble tea to sell.

People take pictures to show others what they're drinking

What is driving the demand is social media -- people posting pictures of the drinks they have bought, raving about how long they waited and yet the bubble tea was so good. Those looking at the pictures feel like they're missing out.

Not me!

Bubble tea drinks are hardly healthy, as it's the giant tapioca balls are made of starch, which means lots of sugar. No one really finishes all those tapioca balls and even worse the drinks are served in plastic cups with plastic straws. Hardly environmentally friendly.

And we're going to have more bubble tea shops?

This craze is temporary and then many of these shops are going to close down. Then again I might be wrong, but it's definitely breeding a lot of potential diabetics in the future...

Truly Minimalist Living

Can you imagine living in a space slightly larger than this parking spot?

Last week we talked about some really tiny flats. There's more.

Swire's Star Studios on Wing Fung Street has studio flats are only 142 square feet.

That's 10 sq ft bigger than a standard private car parking space, according to the Planning Department.

Swire has units at Wing Fung Street that are 142 sq ft

The development, adjacent to Three Pacific Place in Wan Chai, has 120 units, six of them 142 sq ft, and 60 percent of them ranging from 206 to 240 sq ft, the largest ones are 490 sq ft.

These flats will be smaller than AVA62 in Jordan that currently has the smallest flats on the market at 152 sq ft.

"Hongkongers have to sacrifice their living quality as the sky high property prices and rents have gone beyond the reach of the general public," says Pang Shui-kee, managing director of SK Pang Surveyors.

Peggy Chan, local director of Hong Kong residential at JLL, estimated the monthly rent would be about HK$90 per sq ft, which meant the tiniest flats would cost HK$12,780 per month.

But before your jaw drops further, Swire's development, that will be available in the fourth quarter, will probably be in demand because it is located in between Wan Chai and Admiralty, near restaurants, public transport and Central.

At least there are lots of restaurants downstairs to choose from

It's amazing how much developers/landlords are asking for in terms of rent, but we also have to wonder how you live in such a small space? Obviously a bed is a priority, but then what else? Where do you put all your stuff? Sounds like hard core minimalist living.

But more importantly, at what point will the tiny size of the flat be considered inhumane?

Fact of the Day: Microflats Getting Even Smaller

Can you live in a tiny space like this day after day, year after year?

Just when you thought Hong Kong flats couldn't get even smaller, they are.

Emperor International Holdings will have the tiniest flats in the city when it plans to launch a project where each unit measures 61.4 square feet or 5.7 square metres.

One can barely even fit a mattress in that space.

Located at 17-19 Yik Kam Street in Happy Valley, the project -- which is yet to be named -- converts an existing 21-storey commercial building into a residential one.

The unit's current measurement doesn't include the space allocated for a kitchen and bathroom.

But when they are added, the space is still smaller than a project in Jordan called AVA62. There each unit measures 152 square feet -- including a balcony -- selling for HK$20,000 per square foot or HK$3 million.

Microflats are very popular because average home prices have soared beyond the reach of average salary earners, prompting developers to scale down.

And to meet the demand, as many as 5,000 small flats are in in the pipeline every year until 2019, almost triple the average in the last decade.

We get that developers are appealing to investors and first-time buyers to create flats that are somewhat affordable.

But who wants to live in flats like that? What are the psychological effects of living in such tiny spaces?

It can't be good for one's wellbeing...