How Hong Kong’s ‘Covid-19 heroes’ rose to the challenges they faced
- Cleaner Fong Chi-keung has spent most of the past two years being on call 24 hours a day to clean and disinfect premises affected by Covid-19
- Cheung Yuk-lin was among 12,800 care home staff infected with coronavirus during the fifth wave but as soon as she recovered she was back looking after sick residents
Hong Kong has been on a roller-coaster ride during the coronavirus pandemic, largely containing Covid-19 for almost two years until the situation took a turn for the worse at the end of 2021, when the city was hit by an Omicron-fuelled fifth wave of infections.
After the city began to turn the corner from the calamitous episode that left more than 9,000 mostly elderly people dead and over 1 million residents infected, the Post talked to some of Hong Kong’s “Covid-19 heroes”, people who have risen to the challenges thrown at them by the virus over the past two years.
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Why has Hong Kong been hit so hard by the Covid-19 fifth wave?
Sudden loss of a centenarian full of life hits family hard
Margaret So remembers her 101-year-old maternal grandmother for her zest for life, always wanting to look her best and with a delightful streak of vanity.
“We thought she walked too much and bought her a wheelchair. She insisted on taking a detour so no one would see her in it,” the 40-year-old accountant recalled with a laugh. “Once, after staying in hospital for a few days, she headed to the salon immediately to get a perm.”
So and her cousins visited their Por Por every week, bringing her favourite treats, durian and Coca-Cola.
The centenarian was in good health, alert and knew them all. She meant a lot to the cousins, who spent most of their childhood with their grandmother while their parents were at work.
Then Covid-19 took her away swiftly this year.