‘We will not be silenced,’ says CEO after government accuses Hong Kong Watch of endangering China’s national security
A UK-based rights group has pledged not to remain silent after Hong Kong’s government demanded it shut its website and accused it of endangering China’s national security.
While China heavily restricts the internet on the mainland, Hong Kong does not generally censor the web, allowing residents to access sites and content that might be critical of Beijing.
Continue reading...Revolution of Our Times looks at the 2019 demonstrations, which some Taiwanese saw as a warning sign about their own future
A film on the pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019 has broken a box office record in Taiwan for an overseas Chinese-language documentary within the first fortnight of its release.
Revolution of Our Times, directed by Hong Kong film-maker Kiwi Chow and which premiered at the Cannes film festival last year, has grossed around $17m NTD (US$600,000) as of Wednesday, the film’s distributor said.
Continue reading...The temporary bridge will aid work on a makeshift hospital as the city’s Covid death rate reaches world’s highest per 1m people
A temporary bridge linking Shenzhen and Hong Kong has been erected to help workers and materials from the mainland to enter the city as work began on a Covid-19 makeshift hospital to relieve pressure on the city’s overwhelmed medical system.
Almost 2,000 Chinese contractors from the China State Construction Engineering are in Hong Kong this week to build the makeshift facility near Hong Kong’s border with the mainland, which is expected to provide 1,000 more hospital beds and quarantine rooms for up to 10,000 people.
Continue reading...Government is planning to test entire population for virus but insists it will not impose ‘complete lockdown’
Soaring Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong have led to court services being suspended for a month as the two largest consumer retail chains ration certain items.
The Asian financial hub has recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day in what the authorities called a “fifth wave”, overwhelming hospitals and shattering the city’s zero-Covid strategy.
Continue reading...Despite nearly a third of shark species nearing extinction, Spain supplied 51,000 tonnes of shark fins from 2003-20, says IFAW
European countries are selling so many shark fins to Asia that they dominate nearly half the trade, a study has found.
Shark populations continue to decline, driven by the global shark fin trade. Last year, scientists found a third of sharks and ray species have been overfished to near-extinction, jeopardising the health of entire ocean ecosystems and food security for many countries.
Continue reading...City, which is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy, is registering thousands of cases a day in its worst-ever wave of the virus
Hong Kong’s government has invoked emergency powers to allow doctors and nurses from the Chinese mainland to practise in the financial hub as it struggles to tackle a spiralling coronavirus outbreak.
“The regulation will provide a legal framework for the CPG (central people’s government) to render the necessary emergent support to Hong Kong in a more effective and expeditious manner,” the government said in a statement.
Continue reading...Dozens of live-in workers have been forced to sleep rough in the Hong Kong winter after bosses refuse to allow them back in the house
Live-in domestic workers in Hong Kong have been left homeless after they were diagnosed with Covid-19 and their employers fired them or refused their return to the residence, support groups have said.
Many of the workers, who are mostly women from Indonesia and the Philippines, were also left without insurance to cover their medical bills.
Continue reading...Carrie Lam announces mandatory mass testing as virus surge threatens to overwhelm healthcare system
The entire population of nearly 7.5 million people in Hong Kong will have to undergo mandatory Covid-19 testing in March, the city’s leader has announced, as the territory grapples with its worst outbreak, driven by the Omicron variant.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said the population would be tested three times in March, and the territory’s testing capacity would be boosted to 1 million a day or more. “Since we have a population of some 7 million people, testing will take about seven days,” she said.
Continue reading...Construction crews from mainland China will help build isolation units, Carrie Lam said
Hong Kong reported 15 coronavirus deaths and more than 6,000 confirmed cases for a second day in a surge the Chinese territory’s leader says its overwhelming hospitals.
The government announced plans to have construction crews from mainland China build isolation units with 10,000 beds after crowding at hospitals forced patients to wait outdoors in winter cold.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico
Continue reading...A policy of admitting every positive case to hospital means thousands are being added to an already huge backlog every day
The beds pile up outside Hong Kong’s Caritas hospital. In the cold night, elderly patients lie on gurneys covered with blankets and thermal foil sheets. A woman in pink folds her arms against the chill, while another reaches across her bed in an apparent gesture of comfort to a neighbour. Nearby, others crowd into yellow and blue spillover tents lining the car park edges. The hospital staff attend people calling out when they can but they are outnumbered. Wails from patients carry through the air.
There are similar scenes across the city, where 11 public hospitals were operating at or beyond capacity as of Friday. Private hospitals refuse to take Covid patients. Photos supplied to the Guardian show a treatment room inside one hospital earlier this week (88% capacity) with gurneys three deep across the thoroughfare, on a floor strewn with garbage. Bathrooms that no one has had time to clean were soiled with faeces, dirt and discarded biohazard bags.
Continue reading...UK-based Hong Kong Watch says outage could be part of wider Beijing crackdown
The website of a UK-based advocacy group appears to have become inaccessible through some networks in Hong Kong, raising fears of mainland-style internet censorship in the Chinese territory.
The group, Hong Kong Watch, which monitors human rights, said it worried the censorship could be a part of a wider crackdown on freedom of speech under Hong Kong’s national security law, which allows the police to ask service providers to “delete” information or “provide assistance” on national security cases.
Continue reading...Fears that city struggling with 2,000 coronavirus cases a day could see daily figures reach 30,000
Hong Kong has turned newly built public housing and 10,000 hotel rooms into quarantine accommodation as authorities strive to control an Omicron outbreak that has overwhelmed the city.
Recent days have seen record daily highs of more than 2,000 cases, but experts have warned the outbreak could reach about 30,000 a day. Already hospitals, testing facilities, and isolation centres have been swamped, with local media publishing photos of spillover tents set up in hospital carparks.
Continue reading...UK cases down 30% on the previous week, with weekly deaths down 27.2%; 500 French vehicles arrive in Brussels to protest against Covid measures
Sweden’s Health Agency recommended on Monday that people aged 80 or above should receive a second booster shot of Covid vaccine, the fourth jab in total, to ward off waning immunity amid the rampant spread of the Omicron variant.
The recommendation also covered all people living in nursing homes or who receive assisted living services at home. The second booster shot should be administered at least four months after the first booster jab, the agency said in a statement.
Continue reading...The territory imports 90% of its food and supply fears come as it battles its worst outbreak of the pandemic
Hong Kong authorities said supplies of vegetables and chilled poultry to the global financial hub may be temporarily disrupted after some mainland goods vehicle drivers preliminarily tested positive for Covid-19.
Hong Kong imports 90% of its food, with the mainland its most important source, especially for fresh food.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
The Novavax Covid vaccine is available for Australians to receive, with the first person in the country getting the jab today.
Health minister Greg Hunt, giving a press conference at a medical centre in Melbourne, said with the new availability of Novavax there were “no excuses for anybody” not to get a Covid jab – alluding to people who had chosen to wait for this vaccine.
There are those that, for their own personal circumstances, have awaited or been unable to take the other vaccines. This is a new choice. It’s a protein vaccine ... a tried and tested vaccine platform.
I have preferred a traditional vaccine to be introduced into myself. I’m not anti-vax, I’m pro-choice, and this was my choice.
Continue reading...Apology comes as city enforces new measures including closure of hairdressers and addition of malls to vaccine pass system
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has said she is “deeply sorry and anxious” about the lengthy wait for residents to get tested or enter isolation facilities after a record number of new coronavirus cases left authorities scrambling.
Hong Kong’s daily Covid-19 infections nearly doubled to a record 1,161 cases on Wednesday as the global financial hub battles a rapid surge that could pose the biggest test yet of its “dynamic zero” policy.
Continue reading...Sweden scraps almost all of its few restrictions and stops most testing; Spain’s King Felipe tests positive after displaying mild symptoms
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has pledged to recruit 15,000 new health workers by the end of March to tackle the pandemic treatment backlog.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said the NHS planned “to recruit 10,000 more nurses from overseas and 5,000 more healthcare support workers by the end of March” to improve capacity.
“Remove your mask,” a man demands, as I walk through the crowd. When I say I would like to keep it on, he immediately asks if I’m from mainstream media. I reply that I am and he says “don’t twist the truth just because you’re on the government dollars”. He is not the only one demanding I remove the mask.
Continue reading...Large parts of the world are opening up, but Hong Kong is still pursuing ‘dynamic zero’ despite rising cases and a public running out of patience
A viral open letter from a member of Facebook group, HK Moms, marked something of a shift in public opinion. The group is the type not usually preoccupied with the city’s political upheavals, but the letter revealed a limit had been reached.
Addressing Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, it accused the government of holding its citizens hostage with new Covid measures – the toughest restrictions since June 2020.
Continue reading...Residents furious as protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions paralyse Ottawa; more than 17 million Vietnamese students due to return to school
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has said he believes the NHS waiting list is going to grow even more due to 8-9 million people who have stayed away during the pandemic.
Speaking on Sky News, he urged those who have stayed away to “please come forward”.