‘Filipinos should, however, remain vigilant in observing fundamental health protocols or suffer the consequences, the way Hong Kong is now reeling under the pandemic.’
IF there is a clear heads-up for countries all over the world which are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, it should be the experience of Hong Kong.
Reports said that Hong Kong is grappling with the worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, at a time when many places in the world are already loosening up on mobility restrictions and basic health protocols because the pandemic is obviously fading away.
It might be late in the day, for it is only now that Hong Kong residents are making do with tightening of restrictions as imposed by the government, and hospitals are full of patients. Hong Kong earlier adopted the “zero-Covid” policy which had been somewhat successful for several months. They have been careful and strict in accepting arrivals from countries which had high COVID risk, and for some time, the Philippines was included in this list.
Authorities have enclosed Hong Kong in a bubble when much of the world was being devastated by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. What the Philippines, the United States and other countries learned from trying to stay the onslaught of Omicron is that mass vaccination should be prioritized, a policy that Hong Kong considered not that pressing. Last December, Omicron cases were discovered in Hong Kong’s local community, and the city government and its residents were caught unprepared.
There is something hugely lacking in the government’s response as reflected in the numbers. Since the start of the year, Hong Kong notched more than 20,300 COVID infections, whereas it only recorded 12,000 cases in the last two years.
Hong Kong was remiss in at least two aspects of the pandemic response: it has run out of isolation space and hospital beds because it admits all COVID patients, the critical cases along with those with mild symptoms; it did not anticipate the need for huge quarantine facilities following the ramping up of the testing process.
International wire reports say the HK government is still scrambling to look for a place to build a mega-hospital and is asking assistance from the Chinese mainland to implement the needed measures to fight COVID.
We can consider ourselves luckier than Hong Kong residents, for the Philippines is on its way to beating COVID. Filipinos should, however, remain vigilant in observing fundamental health protocols or suffer the consequences, the way Hong Kong is now reeling under the pandemic.
