Monday 13 July 2020

Coronavirus returns to Hong Kong

And the next two weeks will be critical in controlling what the experts are calling our “Third Wave”.
The measures are simple: For Individuals:: distancing, disinfecting, masking. For Government: testing, tracing, tracking.
Also: protecting the vulnerable. Which is people like me: elderly with conditions.
We may just have to adapt to this as the “new normal”. Which is what I said yesterday. We have to continue with life: work, play, study, sport. And my sense, at least here in Hong Kong, where we were in the front line and early into the virus, is that people are already into the “new normal”. People are getting out and about. They carry masks, put them on when needed. Disinfecting is universal. We are in the New Normal.
From ‘How serious is Hong Kong’s Third Wave of Covid-19 infections and what can we do to end it?’:
[HKU Microbiologist Dr] Leung Kwok-Young hoped a “1+1+X” formula for social-distancing measures would prevent an epidemic. Under the formula, residents had to “endure the pain for a week” and refrain from social gatherings, and then be prepared to do it for another week if the situation had not improved.

“I hope that through these two weeks, the invisible chain can be broken,” Leung said, adding that the situation could continue until next year without a vaccine.

But the Centre for Health Protection noted the coronavirus might not go away and people would have to learn to live with it and adapt to the new normal. It said the public should be prepared for small local outbreaks from time to time and that social-distancing measures might need to be tightened at times.

The WHO warned in May it could take five years to get the pandemic under control around the world.