Hong Kong, which twists under Covid, leaves its most vulnerable in the cold

HONG KONG – For Chan Shun Ki, a construction site cleaner in Hong Kong, overcoming the coronavirus was the easy part.

Ms. Chan was eager to return to work after missing more than a week last month while recovering. She had already missed out on rent after the pandemic wiped out her previous jobs of cleaning hotels and waiting tables. She borrowed money from relatives to compensate for the loss of her daily salary of $ 83.

But then she received a text message from the government’s healthcare system, which struggled with long days behind. He ordered her to stay home for another two weeks because her coronavirus test was positive. She had taken it 12 days ago.

“I feel so much pressure,” said Ms. Chan, a single mother of a 15-year-old. “The government is really incompetent and leaves us, the people, not knowing what to do.

As Hong Kong sinks under its fifth and worst wave of coronavirus, the burden falls on its most vulnerable: migrants, racial minorities, the working class. While the city has long been one of the most unequal on earth, rarely has the cost of this inequality been so steep like now.

This is partly due to the large scale of this wave, which in two months led to more than 250,000 infections and 800 deaths – many times more than the previous four waves combined. The bodies have been piled up in hospital corridors because there is no more room in the morgues. Elderly patients are left in wheelchairs outdoors.

But the suffering is also exacerbated, according to some, by government policy. Under the leadership of China’s central government, Hong Kong officials are pushing for some of the world’s strictest rules on social distancing, which are crippling many service industries. However, they failed to control the virus.

As a result, poor people in cramped apartments have spread the virus to their families because the government has depleted isolation facilities. Those who recover cannot return to work because testing means they cannot prove they are negative.

Migrant domestic workers, mostly women from Southeast Asia who work as nurses and cleaners, have been fired after falling ill and forced to sleep on the streets. (Hong Kong law requires workers to live in their employers’ homes.) Vegetable prices have risen, but the government has offered limited monetary relief.

Employees sometimes actively challenge efforts to help those in need. A high-ranking official has threatened to harass the public, which raises funds for migrant workers fined for violating social distancing rules.

Roger Chung, a professor of public health ethics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the restrictive measures risk causing as much harm to low-income people as the virus itself.

“I don’t think the goal of protecting people’s health from Covid-19 is the only undisputed goal in politics,” he said. “Because these policies can also affect the well-being of others, especially in destabilizing their income and livelihoods.”

Even before the pandemic, inequality in Hong Kong was staggering. There are more billionaires than any city other than New York, but still over 200,000 residents live in carved dwellings, where the average living space per person is 48 square feet.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, these often dilapidated homes are even more dangerous. The plumbing is often reconfigured to accommodate multiple households sharing an apartment, and improper installation can allow the virus to spread between floors. Insufficient ventilation also feeds the transmission.

Social distancing is impossible. Mrs. Chan, a single mother, shares a one-bedroom apartment with her son. Days after she got sick, so did he.

Some residents, desperate to avoid infecting their relatives, slept on their rooftops or stairs. The NGO, a non-profit organization, said it had received calls for help from nearly 300 people who were isolated at home without access to food or medical supplies since the fifth wave began in January.

The lack of isolation facilities has proved to be an equally, if not more, challenge for migrant domestic workers, who make up about 10 per cent of the working population, have few legal rights and often suffer discrimination.

Ina, an Indonesian worker who has been in Hong Kong for three years, started coughing on February 21. Her employer ordered her not to return to the house until she received a negative test result, said Ina, who insisted she be identified only by her first name for fear of losing her job.

For hours she stood in the rain in front of her employer’s house. Finally, around midnight, her employer allowed her to enter, ordering her to go straight to her room without using the toilet, Ina said. In the morning she was expelled again.

“Why are you just pushing me? have you never helped me with anything? ”said Ina, who eventually found accommodation through the non-profit organization HELP for domestic workers.

HELP CEO Manisa Vigesinhe said that in five days in February, the group accepted nearly 70 workers who were left homeless after a positive test.

The Hong Kong Ministry of Labor said in a statement that the dismissal of domestic workers due to illness was illegal.

But the authorities themselves have been accused of discrimination. Last month, after the government tightened restrictions on group gatherings, police said they carried out an attack in an area where domestic workers “often gather” and issued 17 tickets. The fine of $ 640 per person is more than the workers’ minimum monthly wage.

In response, some residents organized online fundraising, raising $ 14,000 over three days. Labor Secretary Luo Chi-kuong then accused them of encouraging illegal activities and said he would consider legal action. The organizers stopped raising funds.

Even residents who have escaped the infection are straining under the economic burden of the pandemic.

Vegetable prices have risen after one-fifth of the city’s vegetable truck drivers have been unable to work due to quarantine rules. (About 90 percent of Hong Kong’s production comes from mainland China.) At the end of February, the average price of Chinese salad was almost three times higher than a month earlier, according to official statistics. Tomato and potato prices have almost doubled.

Chan Lap To, who owns a vegetable stand in western Hong Kong, said most customers buy less than usual. But he had to raise prices. In addition to running the stall, he also sold vegetables to hotels and restaurants, and the business fell by half due to volatile supply and weak demand.

He said he had not received any state aid to make up for his losses. “This is very unfair to all the people in Hong Kong,” Mr Chan said. “Everything is connected.”

The government also offered financial support for certain industries last week, officials offered a nearly $ 22 billion aid package, including vouchers of approximately $ 1,300 for most residents. But some companies have been excluded from previous subsidies. And vouchers are digital, which means they can’t be rented or at ubiquitous stalls like Mr. Chan’s, which only accept money.

Hong Kong also does not have unemployment insurance. The government promised last month to give a one-time payment of $ 1,300 to people who lost their jobs during the fifth wave. But those who had been unemployed earlier did not qualify.

For Ms. Chan, the government’s promises could bring temporary relief. But what she really wants is to get back to work. To do so, she would welcome even more draconian measures, such as blocking the entire city to control coronavirus cases.

“It’s dragging like that, so I can’t work for a few months – that’s not the way to do things,” she said. “Short-term pain is better than long-term pain.”

Joy Dong contributed to the reporting.