Day: April 17, 2022

Unpredictable local COVID-19 policies combined with China’s zero-pandemic approach to the coronavirus are taking a toll in Hong Kong, where residents and others say they are feeling increased pressures during the pandemic’s worst wave.

Reports of dead bodies filling hospital rooms, old people on beds outside hospitals in winter rain, long lines in freezing cold for mandatory PCR tests and complaints of neglect in government quarantine facilities have been in newspaper headlines in the last three months.

The city recorded the highest COVID death rate across the globe in early March, and residents witnessed the highest dissatisfaction rate with the government since the pandemic began.

Lack of support

One Hong Kong resident, requesting anonymity, was among those experiencing weeks of stress during the omicron wave. The 28-year-old’s mother started coughing in late February, and soon tested positive with at-home test kits.

At the time, the government only recognized COVID tests conducted in designated testing stations, which struggled to cope with explosive demand.

“My mother wanted to go to the stations for a test, but she was refused due to her symptoms. And there were so many people lining up – seriously even if I wasn’t infected, I probably would have contracted the virus if I had to line up like that,” the education worker told VOA.

Doctors at private clinics refused to see her mother because of her COVID symptoms. Then she went to the hospital to be told she would be better off going home as she would have to wait for over 10 hours if she stayed.

“My mother was extremely anxious at the time, and we didn’t know what to do since we didn’t know how bad it could get. We tried calling the government hotline for more support, but no one picked up. I couldn’t sleep for a few nights,” she said.

The daughter tested positive a few days later using the at-home test but given the reported conditions in quarantine facilities – including unpalatable food, negligence and shared toilets – she did not to report her test result to authorities to avoid being sent to one.

Inconsistent policies

On February 18, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced a citywide testing plan under its zero-COVID approach to single out the confirmed patients and send some to quarantine facilities. At the time, she said a lockdown would not “go hand in hand” with the citywide testing.

Ten days later, Health Secretary Sophia Chan told public broadcaster RTHK that the city would not rule out a lockdown along with mass testing. That statement fueled fears among Hong Kongers, who were seen emptying supermarket pharmacy shelves in preparation.

A day later, Lam urged people to stay calm and not to believe in “rumors” of a lockdown, despite Chan’s comments. Eight days later, Lam said the city would drop citywide testing – which had been supposed to launch in March – as a priority.

Starting April 21, dining in in restaurants will resume, and recreational venues, including gyms, cinemas and theme parks will reopen.

Another Hong Kong resident, who wished to stay anonymous, told VOA she did not report testing positive to the government because of “mercurial” policies.

“I can’t even begin – they [the government] didn’t have any organizational skills. Their measures are mercurial, so residents don’t know how to adapt. When I was sick, I couldn’t get my hands on any medication because by that point, people already stocked up a lot [during panic buying]. I was worried that my symptoms could be very serious,” she said.

Financial and mental strains

Hong Kong residents fear losing their jobs due to mandatory quarantine, Benjamin Cowling, division head of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Hong Kong, told VOA in an email.

“A lot of people could be uneasy about the idea of being locked inside a relatively small room for an unknown amount of time, and separated from their family members and pets. Some people have lost their jobs as a result of being isolated, because if they don’t show up to work, they will be replaced,” Cowling said.

The head of Soulgood, a local online counseling platform, told VOA the demand for counseling services jumped tenfold in the last three months.

“Mental stress has definitely increased in the past year due to COVID as there is more stress related to COVID policies…Main symptoms of this group were isolation, anxiety and depression,” Ben Cheung, CEO of the platform, wrote in an email.

More than 65,000 people applied for the government’s unemployment relief plan for COVID on the first day it was open, according to a government statement in late March.

A separate local survey revealed that that two-thirds of Hong Kongers would see their household income affected if they are restricted from going out during the citywide testing, and half think that they would be infected when getting their specimens collected at the testing station.

The survey also indicated that close to half of Hong Kongers do not support policies requiring confirmed patients to quarantine at government designated facilities.

Zero-COVID approach

Hong Kong cannot make the final decision on its COVID policies, according to Alfred Wu, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore specializing in governance in the Greater China region.

“It is clear that Beijing makes the final decision. … China thinks zero-COVID policy works, and so every city should try to implement that, including Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government knows they have to listen to Beijing, even when many people and businesses are opposed to stringent restrictions,” Wu told VOA by phone.

A zero-COVID approach is likely only effective when the population is mostly vaccinated, according to Dr. Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at the Canberra Hospital in Australia.

“Policies that keep covid at low levels or at zero levels are a good idea initially while you get you population vaccinated,” Collignon told VOA in an email.

Hong Kong’s elderly have been hit the hardest by the Omicron wave, with people aged over 80 witnessing the highest number of deaths. This group also saw the lowest vaccination rate – below 60%.

“The biggest mistake in Hong Kong was to presume they [the government] could maintain zero COVID but more importantly, not to ensure that those most likely to die from COVID when it inevitably entered Hong Kong and spread widely, the elderly, were vaccinated. Hence why the death toll in HK is so high per capita compared to other countries who also had low levels or zero covid before,” Collignon added.

Source: Voice of America

It’s a convergence that happens only rarely. Coinciding with Judaism’s Passover, Western Christianity’s Easter and Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, Buddhists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Jains and Hindus also are celebrating their holy days in April.

The springtime collision of religious holidays is inspiring a range of interfaith events. In Chicago, there’s the Interfaith Trolley Tour coming up on April 24, in which a trolley will make stops at different faiths’ houses of worship. In cities across the United States, Muslims are inviting people to interfaith iftars so they can break their daily Ramadan fasts in community with their non-Muslim neighbors.

In addition to Passover, Easter and Ramadan, holy days occurring in April this year include the Sikhs’ and Hindus’ Vaisakhi, the Jains’ Mahavir Jayanti, the Baha’i festival of Ridvan, and the Theravada Buddhist New Year.

Across faiths, the celebration of the overlapping holy days and religious festivals is seen as a chance to share meals and rituals. For some, it’s also a chance to learn how to cooperate among faith traditions on crucial issues, including how to help curb climate change, fight religious intolerance, and assist people fleeing Afghanistan, Ukraine and other nations during the global refugee crisis.

“The rare convergence of such a wide array of holy days is an opportunity for all of us to share what we hold sacred with our neighbors from other traditions as a way of building understanding and bridging divides,” said Eboo Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America, previously known as Interfaith Youth Core. “This is Interfaith America in microcosm.”

On Chicago’s south side, the upcoming trolley tour is intended to teach participants about this year’s April holidays, which are converging for the first time in the same month since 1991, said Kim Schultz, coordinator of creative initiatives at the Chicago Theological Seminary’s InterReligious Institute.

The trolley will stop at several sacred spaces, including a Baptist church, a mosque and a synagogue, and will end with an iftar at sunset catered by recently resettled Afghan refugees.

“We’re asking people to take advantage of this confluence, the convergence … more than half of the world is celebrating or commemorating the critical moment in our faith traditions,” said Hind Makki, director of recruitment and communications at American Islamic College.

The event is sponsored by the American Islamic College, the Chicago Theological Seminary, the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology, the Hyde Park & Kenwood Interfaith Council and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. After more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions that upended many holidays, followers are eager to meet in person again.

Organizers of the Chicago event said they had arranged for a trolley that would carry 25 people, but there was so much interest across faiths that they had to arrange for a bigger trolley for 40 people instead. And then, when more kept joining, a second trolley.

“This is a great time,” Makki said. “So, why not take the opportunity to learn about each other’s traditions, to learn about each other through those traditions.”

As part of the month’s celebrations, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA opened its mosques to host dozens of interfaith iftars in cities across the nation centered on the theme of ‘justice through compassion.’

“During our gatherings across 35 cities we emphasized that the world that we see now stands on the brink of a world war,” said Amjad Mahmood Khan, national director of public affairs for Ahmadiyya. “And only the collective prayers and actions of the faithful can really save humanity from self-destruction.”

Faith leaders from Christian, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu faiths gathered recently for a virtual panel celebrating the convergence of their sacred observances. Among the issues discussed were shared concerns over the rise of white Christian nationalism and legislation in Arizona and Florida that they criticized for marginalizing LGBTQ young people.

“We see that convergence as highly symbolic, maybe even divinely ordained as our people need to reaffirm our shared values of love, freedom and justice in order to disrupt white Christian nationalists’ attempts to decide what ideas, identities and practices are valued and respected,” said the Rev. Jennifer Butler, founder and chief executive of the Washington-based multifaith group Faith in Public Life.

“This sacred season presents the opportunity for solidarity, for prophetic witness as we lament the rise of intolerance and discriminatory laws that threaten our nation’s quest to be a multiracial and multireligious democracy,” she said.

It will also be an important moment for members of different faiths to find common ground in the runup to the U.S. midterm elections, said Nina Fernando, executive director of the Shoulder to Shoulder campaign, a multifaith national coalition committed to countering and preventing anti-Muslim discrimination.

“With the time that we’re living where essentially we’re polarized and divided among racial and religious and political lines, we can take this opportunity to talk about how to live well together amidst our diversity and talk about these holidays overlapping,” Fernando said.

The convergence of the holidays also offers a chance to dispel misconceptions about faith traditions and appreciate shared values, said the Rev. Stephen Avino, executive director of the Parliament for World Religions.

“The holidays are the enactment of the core values, and we can actually see before our eyes the beauty of that tradition through the holidays and through ritual,” Avino said. “You can compare that to your own traditions, and you can see the similarities and differences and within that is the beauty of that. And you start to see that faith as being worthy of reverence, while still maintaining your own faith.

Source: Voice of America