Fukutomi Gazette –April 2022
COVID-19situation of Hong Kong and Shanghai
Original by Dr. Steve Wong 黃楚祺博士
At the beginning of the outbreak, it was to my knowledge that we should not ignore the COVID-19 virus infectivity as its lethality was relatively high, so it is necessary to take adequate preventive measures as infection could result in death. Many countries advocating a zero policy are careful not to allow flights to and from countries with high epidemic infections. Some require passengers to be quarantined for two or three weeks to avoid spreading the virus. After the emergence of Omicron, although the number of infected cases increased significantly, deaths decreased. In order not to affect daily and economic activities, many countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore have to some extent, relaxed the inflow of visitors under the current covid check measures.
By the beginning of February this year, only mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong still insisted on a “zero-covid strategy”; and adding “dynamic-zero”, which means it should be 100%. Many experts have been discussing its actual meaning. I also searched the internet for the English sense of “zero-Covid dynamic”, and per my understanding, it refers to the active discovery and elimination of the virus. In the beginning, Hong Kong had been doing an excellent job in controlling the epidemic until the major outbreak in early February, where more than 8,000 people have died, and around 2 million people were infected. About 30% of our colleagues have caught the virus, which is disastrous, though everyone faced the problem calmly and rationally. Our factory has been working below capacity due to a shortage of labour. Our commercial team have been unable to timely respond to customers’ queries dueto the absence of some colleagues. Furthermore, our accounting staff have been unable to arrange remittances to overseas suppliers due to a lack of bank staff. The worst situation is now over, and things gradually return to normal.
Two weeks ago, I closely followed the news on the spread of the epidemic in mainland China, worried that there would be an outbreak like the one in Hong Kong and hoping that the situation would not get too serious. It was disappointing to learn from our accounting staff that our customer could not arrange payment because he had containers stuck at the port due to the lockdown of the port in Shanghai and the suspension of trucking services. In addition, some customers cannot wire payments as the city is under lockdown, and they cannot go to the bank. What is more worrisome is the uncertainty about when things will go back to normal.
Shanghai is the world’s busiest port, and closing the port for too long will undoubtedly affect the global supply chain and mainland China’s GDP. However, some experts hope that the outbreak of the epidemic will not cause too many deaths. Another positive thing is that if there is a cluster infection, mainland China can restart factories and borders, and people can reconnect with relatives, friends and business partners.
The only place that hasn’t had a large-scale outbreak is Taiwan, and we can only hope that their medical system can cope in case of a sudden increase in the epidemic.