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Hardly a soul in sight on Tsim Sha Tsui’s usually bustling, luxury shop-lined Canton Road on Saturday afternoon.
This is deader than I remember it ever getting over Hong Kong’s half a year of anti-government protests.
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Members of the recently formed Hospital Authority employees’ union have voted to go on strike Monday over the government’s lack of action to curb the spread of #CoronaVirus. The motion passed by 3,123 versus 10.
The vote was broadcast live at street stations throughout the city.
153
Researchers at a Shenzhen hospital have just found #2019nCoV survives in the excrement of the infected. This strongly suggests fecal as well as respiratory transmission is possible, making a scenario like the infamous Amoy Gardens SARS outbreak possible.
weibo.com/2831150640/Ise…
154
This is worse than it looks.
Even a normal baton strike (i.e. to the thighs/forearms) would be against regulation, as it is reserved for meeting “active aggression.”
But leaked police training manuals show that a strike to the head is in fact “deadly force”—same as firearm use. twitter.com/leungjasminee/…
155
1) That is unbelievably offensive.
2) Shanghai’s borders (not China’s) were open to Jews because it was a foreign-run open port that didn’t require visas or passports (what China condemns as “semi-colonialism") and the Japanese never bowed to Nazi requests to exterminate them. twitter.com/Jerusalem_Post…
156
This is the scene outside Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital, where medical workers are striking to demand the government close the city’s border with mainland China to contain the #WuhanCoronavirusOutbreak and provide adequate support for both hospital employees and regular HKs.
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Macau has passed a law requiring all passengers aboard public transportation to wear face-masks from today to prevent the spread of #2019nC0V, joining Guangzhou.
Hong Kong’s government is still fighting a court appeal to impose a law banning face-masks.
hk01.com/%E7%A4%BE%E6%9…
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Hong Kong’s first #2019nCoV fatality has just occurred.
The 39-year-old victim, a Whampoa resident, suffered from heart failure this morning. He was diagnosed 31 January, the city’s 13th case.
【武漢肺炎．最新】首宗死亡個案 39歲住黃埔男病人心臟停頓 hk01.com/article/429654
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Placing 60 million people on lockdown didn’t create panic, the US withdrawing some consular staff did. twitter.com/zlj517/status/…
160
In the atrium of the upscale Landmark shopping mall in Central, a rally begins to support striking Hospital Authority staff and reiterate their demand that Hong Kong close its border with the mainland to stem the spread of #2019nC0V, which killed its first local victim today.
161
As 1000s queue overnight for masks, this exchange:
“Thanks to Carrie Lam for giving me this opportunity.”
“Why?”
“I never thought I’d sleep out on the street to buy face masks.”
They may have lost hope and faith in their gov’t, but HKers haven’t lost their dark sense of humour.
162
Genting Cruise Lines’ vessel World Dream has docked at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal after being turned away from Kaohsiung due to coronavirus concerns. Taiwanese authorities prohibited her from making her expected port of call yesterday having sailed from Guangzhou 24 Jan.
163
“[The govt is] left with so little legitimacy and social capital that citizens simply no longer believe it will act in their interests.”
HK’s handing of the #coronavirus crisis would be bad for any city; for a modern, global metropolis that weathered SARS, it’s an embarrassment. twitter.com/mbrookerhk/sta…
164
Taiwanese President @iingwen announces her gov’t has overdelivered on promises to produce 4m masks daily, churning out 4.2m instead and delivering 1.7m to healthcare facilities nationwide every day.
Today, HK’s gov’t said it has no plans to control the supply or prices of masks.
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Face masks are "a signal of mutual assurance that allows a society to keep functioning during an epidemic."
This is something I try to get across to people in Hong Kong (alas, mostly "expats") who refuse to mask up because they reckon they know better than the hysterical locals. twitter.com/austinramzy/st…
166
Apple Daily reports that the Hong Kong Police Force has been issued close to 640,000 N95 respirators by the gov’t—over 40 times more than the Department of Health.
HKPF also received 40,000 protective coverall suits, versus 2,000 for medical personnel.
hk.appledaily.com/local/20200215…
167
Taiwan just reported its first #COVID2019 death: a diabetic man in his mid-60s with hepatitis B who has no history of travel abroad and contracted the virus locally.
Hospitalised since 3 February, he died last night from pneumonia and septicaemia.
udn.com/news/story/120…
168
Report raises questions about Chinese leader's #coronavirus timeline dpa-international.com/topic/topic/re… 來自 @dpa_intl
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HK has issued a red alert against South Korea, banning all non-HK arrivals from the country which has reported 833 #COVID19 cases.
This is the same gov’t that refused to close HK’s border with China (77,262 cases) claiming that would be “discrimination.”
m.mingpao.com/ins/%E6%B8%AF%…
170
Wait until he hears about this country of 23.6 million just across the Taiwan Strait that effectively prevented community outbreak, limited infections to fewer than 3 dozen, and provided all citizens with masks and sanitizer whilst preventing panic and not disrupting normal life. twitter.com/YuanfenYang/st…
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ICYMI: Hong Kong, already the 5th most heavily policed territory in the world, received funding for more than 2,500 new recruits y'day—as well as $5.1 billion in additional spending and a cash handout of $25.8 billion equivalent to $85,000 per officer.
rfa.org/english/news/c…
172
China and the @WHO accused Taiwan of overreacting when they blocked arrivals from China. The results?
Korea: 1,595 #COVID19 cases
Japan: 894
Singapore: 93
Taiwan: 32
Taiwan's authorities showed more wisdom than the global public health agency they’ve been unfairly barred from. twitter.com/MPWangTingyu/s…
173
As Taiwan remembers the 228 massacre that began its decades-long White Terror, police in Hong Kong have arrested pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, former Labour Party leader Lee Cheuk-yen, and former Democratic Party leaders Yeung Sum and Albert Ho.
s.nextmedia.com/realtime/a.php…
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HK police were allocated tens of billions to recruit 1,000s more officers in the govt’s new budget this week.
Yet they still have time to destroy the memorial to a student protester who tragically died.
There’s so much wrong with HK it’s sometimes hard to know where to begin. twitter.com/aaronMCN/statu…
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HK’s Basic Law guarantees both freedom of the press and “full autonomy on immigration matters.”
This is why millions of HKers took to to the streets, and partly why @iingwen won by landslide. They could see the death of One Country, Two Systems. Now, surely, the whole world can. twitter.com/BethanyAllenEb…
Managing Editor @cnmediaproject 中國傳媒研究計劃主編