Opinion | Hong Kong finally gets a grip on Covid-19 after leaders realise what the city has lost

Name: Why has Hong Kong been hit so hard by the Covid-19 fifth wave?
Uploaded: 2022-12-25T22:30:10.000Z
Duration: 7 min 29 s
Description: Why has Hong Kong been hit so hard by the Covid-19 fifth wave?

As much as Hongkongers are sick and tired of Covid-19, 2022 was the year when we finally managed to reckon with the virus and get it under control

It’s now time for the government to address the lingering issues from the pandemic, including the mental health crisis and a surge in homeless numbers

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Patients lie in hospital beds as temperatures fall at nighttime outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Sham Shui Po on February 16. The fifth wave that started the year marked one of the lowest points of the pandemic for Hong Kong. Photo: AFP

Alice Wu

Published: 6:30am, 26 Dec 2022

As the year comes to a close, it is hard to imagine all that Hong Kong has gone through and how far we have come. As much as we are sick and tired of Covid-19, 2022 is the year that we finally reckoned with the virus.

The early months of the year were the harshest – the restrictions imposed amid Covid-19 hit their peak with a cap of two people on public gatherings. Residents were suffering from pandemic fatigue, and many businesses were simply unable to hold out any longer to stay afloat.

The now-infamous birthday party of Witman Hung Wai-man was the first and biggest political scandal of 2022. The celebration, whose list of movers and shakers in attendance included 14 senior officials and 20 lawmakers, ended up drawing the ire of then chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

Held against advice given by government authorities to avoid large gatherings, the party uncovered more than just blatant disregard for scanning the “Leave Home Safe” app. The biggest offence from Hung’s birthday party was making pandemic fatigue “official”.

We rang in 2022 with the fifth wave of the pandemic, but far more shocking was seeing how inadequate our public health system was in handling an outbreak. Patients had to weather the elements in hospital car parks while awaiting treatment. The city was a ghost town. Mainland experts and medical workers had to be sent from across the border to help.

The frightening images of patients lying in gurneys outside the hospital will be permanently seared into our collective memory. The near-collapse of our hospitals made it clear that we did not have the luxury of less-stringent measures – a hard reality to stomach.

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Why has Hong Kong been hit so hard by the Covid-19 fifth wave?