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Hong Kong, China – On January 21, when the number of coronavirus cases reached 20 in the densely populated area of Kwai Fong, residents were given two hours to prepare for a five-day closure.
Santiago Fung’s family set their sights on more important things.
Her mother and sister bought lettuce and vegetables. Fung picked up dried seafood, herbs for his two turtles, along with two packets of cigarettes and 24 cans of beer.
“I think for five days, that’s enough,” he said as the closing began.
Daily challenges. As hundreds of 2,800 occupants of the building climbed up and welcomed guests for testing, positive cases came in three times. Food provided by the government was tasty and arrived late.
Most of the time, she endured the ordeal of being a 33-year-old confined to a 300-square-foot (27.9 square meter) house with a younger sister and mother who insisted on sharing Chinese herbs with neighbors.
“It’s just about 20 hours,” Fung said on the first day. “And we’ve had two or three fights.”
The people of Hong Kong love the Lunar New Year, a festive time of family dinner and gift-giving, with red and silver envelopes piled high for children, workers, young and old alike. But it is the phase that enters the third year of the virus, as well as the fifth phase of the ban on what the government wants to do. zero COVIDThe Tiger Year of the Dead (February 1) ends in another dark year.
In an effort to stem the tide of bad publicity in an overcrowded city, the government has turned a blind eye close the house and ordering a standardized test, fearing that the person with the virus may cause a regional outbreak. The law of the house of Fung was unusual for the length and quantity of cases found.
Officials insist that Omicron’s proliferation due to the spread of the virus underscores the importance of re-establishing legislation that shut down the city last year. Once again, restaurants and party venues were told they would no longer be able to dine at home after 6pm leading to the cancellation of countless New Year’s plans.
Resorts such as movie theaters, dance clubs, and gymnasiums have also been closed with access to outdoor recreation, especially government-run facilities. In Hong Kong there are no swimming pools, tennis courts, golf courses, meat pits, and even chess tables that are open to the public.
Many people live outside the country, either because they were in a country known to be infected, or they could not book 21 days directly at selected hotels to meet a permanent residency requirement for returning travelers.
However, the city’s strict rules were not applied equally.
Residents were outraged when Chief Executive Carrie Lam appeared to be forgiving a number of government officials who disregarded direction at general meetings after several officials were photographed together in public. political birthday.
On Monday, the Home Affairs Secretary resigned, saying he had made a mistake when he attended a party on January 3. The police chief is still in charge after insisting that he was not talking, but “encouraging communication” at the party.
‘Nothing is happening’
For ordinary citizens, Beijing’s demand for zero COVID has transformed itself into one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a remote, troubled island.
“There is no Chinese New Year this year,” said Karen, a young artist who works at the art gallery on Friday evening. After the bars were closed, he joined four of his drinking companions on the steps of Shin Hing Street in Central where 12 people remained. The bats flew through the air. Soon the police arrived and demanded IDs, as they rebuked those who had been exposed.
Karen laments: “My mother cannot even find flowers. The annual industrial market in Victoria Park has also been plagued by government regulations. “Nothing. Nothing is happening. ”
With dancing, drinking and banned music, horrible scandals abound in the city’s fun neighborhood.
Lan Kwai Fong, a noisy suburb and fast food restaurant inside Hong Kong, is closed, like a bowling alley on Monday morning, with empty streets lined with closed aluminum gates.
“We’re fighting,” said Aldrin Ang, GRAM’s general manager, Gourmet, on Friday afternoon. On a road near the desert of D’Aguilar, Ang wrote to people who did not survive the closure: Rula Bula. Moto N Ice. He heard that the site of another bar was sold at a coffee shop. The word was that the Japanese restaurant was closed.
GRAM usually consists of holiday parties and events. That was amazing. The owner, he says, promised the workers six months’ work. “I don’t know for about seven months,” Ang said with a laugh. He planned to clean up and leave the day, overseeing lunch at only four tables. “At 6 o’clock,” he said, “is a ghost town.
Hong Kong is now a sad, yet rebellious city. With the city’s democratic system demolished, more and more people are enjoying the pleasures of lawlessness.
A resident carries food through a police officer guarding the entrance to a public house that was closed for five days following the spread of COVID-19. [Jerome Favre/EPA]Friends meet in hotel rooms to enjoy dinner. People fill the highways. Swimmers dive through cold water on unprotected beaches. Last Sunday, a bather stole under a tape recorder to clean up after himself.
Even children measure boundaries. Residents of Repulse Bay, a thriving coastal area on Hong Kong Island, cut off the tape that had been nailed to a playground, and city officials returned to wrap the ladder with plastic wrap. “It looks like a modern weapon,” said neighbor Ying Chen. The children push down the bar and start playing again.
Chen and her husband are starting to think about leaving the city. “When the children were in school, parents were always at ease. When studying at home, hearing is like fainting, ”he said.
Days after the closure of the Kwai Chung Estate, Fung wandered through the corridors and stairs of the house to paint the growing piles of garbage. She did not fear getting sick, even though no one in her family had been vaccinated, not even her mother, for fear that she might become infected.
The virus approached. Two neighbors below were found to be infected. One day, the daughter of one family knocked on her door and asked if she could have some carrots. He was transferred to government buildings and needed food for his hamster.
Hamster resistance
Not that there was a lot of fresh food left over. Tired of waiting for the government to provide meat and cabbage, Fung was cooking. By the second day, the couple had no more lettuce and broccoli. Potatoes were used by the fourth day. Fung gripped firmly for eggs chicken wings, pork and three eggs.
Each day, she cleaned and polished the house until it was all gone. Her mother insisted that she use Chinese tea to clean the floor. “I do not know where they got this idea,” he said.
By Friday, government officials wearing blue PPE had found hundreds of cases hiding in the noses and necks of people who live every day on a basketball court. Twelve of the 16 houses on the site were COVID-owned premises at the time, with just over 200 cases at Fung’s Yat Kwai House. The government extended the closure for two days, to a total of seven.
Fung went up the stairs to smoke. In good times he can smoke four times a week. By the fifth day of closing he had completed two packs, all without coffee, because there was none.
He lowered his last beer that night.
As cases have risen even the animals have been scrutinized.
After health officials linked the spread of the virus to work in a pet shop and a client to the hamsters they sell, the government announced that 2,000 of the creatures should be. killed. Hamsters purchased after December 22, announced it should be released.
Some people began to listen, but there was also an insulting wave.
Animal lovers have found support in online dating groups such as the Life on Palm and the Cute Hamster Group, which featured exhibitors wearing hard hats and electric masks. China’s security law could prevent free speech, but hamster lovers were willing to take the opportunity to save the animals from death.
The call is off. Volunteers were needed to protect the abandoned people. Jackie, who does not like to share her name, took two hamsters.
An office worker who once closed the streets during lunch 2019 demonstrations brought him new money for a meeting outside the train station. He resented the principles that should use fear and violence to restore human health. “We can bring the virus to them,” he said, looking at Miracle and Steven Chow, both wrapped in their cotton beds.
He said it was a good sign that many people were willing to ignore the law and protect the weak. “We did not come to hear what the government was saying,” he said.
On Friday, the government released Fung and the rest of the people who do not have COVID at Yat Kwai House. They became known a few days before Lam when they visited the site in front of the TV cameras. Fung and others scolded the boss at their open windows.
A family walking on a pedestrian bridge decorated with red lanterns during the Lunar New Year in central Hong Kong. Restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues have been forced to close again due to COVID-19 [Jerome Favre/EPA]When he was free to leave home, he realized the limits of outside life. He did not go to dinner or meet with large groups of friends. Everyone seemed frustrated with Omicron, including his boss.
Fung was fired for five days, or $ 5,000 from Hong Kong ($ 641), while not working on a construction project. He heard a frost from the boss, who may have been worried about receiving someone from Kwai Fong.
He says he may just stay home on vacation. “I don’t think China’s New Year will be a happy one this year.”
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