Opinion | Hong Kong’s fourth wave: crumbling Yau Tsim Mong’s overdue repairs more urgent than ever in pandemic

Name: Hong Kong coronavirus lockdown: 10,000 people confined as police cordon off part of Yau Tsim Mong
Uploaded: 2021-01-28T22:45:08.000Z
Duration: 3 min 2 s
Description: Hong Kong coronavirus lockdown: 10,000 people confined as police cordon off part of Yau Tsim Mong

Densely populated with old, subdivided flats in poor repair, the Kowloon district has, unsurprisingly, become a centre of Covid-19 contagion

Immediate action is needed to tackle the dilapidated housing and poor living conditions

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A woman dries clothes on a rooftop near the lockdown zone in the Yau Tsim Mong district of Hong Kong on January 24. Photo: Sam Tsang

Bernard Chan

Published: 6:45am, 29 Jan 2021Updated: 6:45am, 29 Jan 2021

The recent Covid-19 cluster in Jordan and Yau Ma Tei has put a spotlight again on the poor housing and environmental conditions in Yau Tsim Mong district. Over the weekend, several blocks in Jordan were cordoned off for emergency mass virus testing.

Thirteen hidden cases were discovered and isolated. Disrupting people’s lives and livelihoods is not the optimal way to manage a pandemic. However, it is also true that we are in an emergency and trying to put out a fire as rapidly as possible.

Yau Tsim Mong has the most Covid-19 cases of any district in Hong Kong. The neighbourhood happens to be home to many ethnic minorities, and it gives me no pleasure to note that some people in Hong Kong have responded with prejudice against district residents, instead of outrage over the poor living conditions.

This behaviour needs to be addressed, and I was happy to see local companies unhesitatingly stand for their ethnic minority workers.

Anyone familiar with this part of Kowloon will hardly be surprised that it has emerged as a centre of contagion in this pandemic. Yau Tsim Mong is the second most densely populated area in Hong Kong. Many buildings contain illegally subdivided flats, and a recent Urban Renewal Authority study of Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok found 90 per cent of the buildings over 30 years old, with the average building age of 52 years.

These buildings were constructed during Hong Kong’s population surge in the 1960s and 1970s, and were not of very high quality to begin with. As we have seen with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and now Covid-19, a virus can spread through sewage and drainage pipes, especially when illegal repairs or those that don’t conform with building codes have been made through the years by landlords.

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Hong Kong coronavirus lockdown: 10,000 people confined as police cordon off part of Yau Tsim Mong