Tag: Covid-19

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Hong Kong

Hong Kong Officials Quarantined After Covid-19 Case at Tapas Birthday Party

Hong Kong Covid

That’s the headline on my newest story, out Friday. It begins:

HONG KONG—As Hong Kong officials were warning citizens to exercise caution after the city’s first Omicron cases emerged last week, senior civil servants joined dozens of other partygoers at a tapas restaurant Monday evening to celebrate the birthday of a China lawmaker.

Now some of them are in a government quarantine center after being classified as close contacts of a party guest who later tested positive for Covid-19. Among them are the city’s home affairs secretary, the director of immigration and some legislators.

Images of the event — held in honor of Witman Hung, a local representative to China’s national legislature — emerged shortly before tough new restrictions on nightlife and other venues across the city came into effect Friday, drawing angry comments from some residents on social media.

Hong Kong has some of the world’s strictest testing and quarantine regimens, and tough border controls had kept the city free of community cases for months. That bubble was punctured last week after an aircrew worker, who was later found to have Omicron, broke home quarantine conditions to eat lunch at a restaurant. Several other diners in the venue later tested positive, and health officials have warned that there are now invisible transmission chains in the city, although recorded cases of Covid-19 transmitted in the community have remained just a few.

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Hong Kong Journalism Tech

Hong Kong Tech Conference Postponed as Pandemic Restrictions Isolate Business Hub

RISE Conference Hong Kong

That’s the headline on my newest story, out Thursday. It begins:

HONG KONG—Organizers of a prominent international technology conference are postponing a gathering in Hong Kong that was set for March, the latest disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic to the city’s role as a global business hub.

An executive for the Dublin-based company that was organizing the annual RISE Conference said to a participant in an email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that uncertainties due to the pandemic have continued, and after much consideration organizers had decided to postpone it until March 2023. A company spokeswoman confirmed the news.

Web Summit, the company that hosts popular conferences that typically draw thousands and feature global technology executives and startup entrepreneurs, was first held in Hong Kong in 2015. Its speakers have included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Joseph Tsai and Stripe Inc. co-founder and President John Collison.

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India Journalism Tech

Facebook Ends Ban on Posts Asserting Covid-19 Was Man-Made

Facebook Covid

That’s the headline on a story I wrote that ran Thursday. It begins:

Facebook Inc. has ended its ban on posts asserting Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a policy shift that reflects a deepening debate over the origins of the pandemic that was first identified in Wuhan, China, almost 18 months ago.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” Facebook said in a statement on its website Wednesday.

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Book Notes

Book Notes: ‘Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction,’ by Christian McMillen

Pandemics: a Very Short Introduction book cover

From time to time I share notes about the books I’ve been reading, or have revisited recently after many years.

These posts are meant to help me remember what I’ve learned, and to point out titles I think are worth consulting.

They’re neither formal book reviews nor comprehensive book summaries, but I hope you find them useful. For previous postings, see my Book Notes category.

Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction

Published: 2016
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978–0199340071
Amazon link

Brief Summary

When it comes to pandemics – including Covid–19 – there’s nothing new under the sun.

My Three Key Takeaways

  1. I read this short (153-page) book, by University of Virginia historian Christian McMillen, earlier this year, as Covid–19 began spreading across the globe.

    My major takeaway: pandemics have long ravaged human populations, of course, and Covid–19 has several historical parallels.

    When cholera hit Europe in the 19th century, merchants rebelled against about trade restrictions. (See the conflict today between those who want to reopen economies and those who think strict lockdowns must continue for public health.)

    When the 1918 influenza swept through nations, authorities in the U.S. and U.K. downplayed its severity. (See how some world leaders this year reacted to Covid–19.)

  2. Whether it’s cholera, HIV, malaria or tuberculosis, poorer people and poorer countries are usually hit hardest. It makes sense: richer people can quarantine themselves and have access to the best medical care.

    (The coronavirus hasn’t run its full course anywhere, really, it seems. But news from places like Brazil and India – not to mention the U.S., the world’s richest nation – is worrying.)

  3. We have been largely complacent when faced with the possibility of another global pandemic, McMillen writes.

Some notable quotations (all emphasis mine)

  • From the end of the chapter on influenza:

    “The 1918 influenza was an event. Unlike malaria and tuberculosis – the perpetual pandemics – influenza comes and goes. In this way it is more like smallpox or plague. Of course these two diseases are no longer major global threats. Influenza is. When H5N1 appeared in humans in 1997 and the novel strain of H1N1 turned up in 2009, the world was reminded of the possibility of another 1918. It has not happened yet. We do not know when it will.”

  • From the epilogue, in discussing the WHO’s “lackluster response” to Ebola:

    “…the WHO is, for better or worse, representative of a way of seeing things in the world of global health, and the leadership’s statement on lessons learned allows me to make a point: every single lesson it learned (or in one instance relearned) could have been gleaned from a look at the past. These lessons are not new; the history of epidemics and pandemics has been teaching them for centuries.”