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Written by: Wang Yuechen
2020-07-13 04:00
Last update date: 2020-07-13 04:00In the second half of 2020, many countries around the world are still affected by the new coronary pneumonia, including the United States, Russia and other major countries. In Hong Kong, only confirmed cases were recorded in sporadic numbers, and most of them were imported cases. Hong Kong people have also slowly walked out of the haze of the epidemic. Shopping malls, restaurants and bars have gradually returned to the flow of people. Beaches and parks on the weekends are even more crowded. According to the Google Trend Report, compared to the tendency of everyone working from home in the early days of the outbreak, Hong Kong people have gradually returned to work in the workplace since June.
From the figures, Hong Kong has one of the lowest infection rates and death rates in the world. Under the cooperation of the government, the business community, and the private sector, from the perspective of "Curve", Hong Kong has still handed in a brilliant epidemic prevention and control score.
First look at the anti-epidemic measures of other advanced powers.
US President Trump has been politicizing the new crown pneumonia. The New York Times pointed out that as early as the end of January, experts had warned the government that the scale of the epidemic would expand unbelievably. The government needed strict prevention and control, but Trump ignored it. The most specific anti-epidemic measures at the beginning were only restrictions on the entry of Chinese tourists. His response method is also a disaster. He once questioned the disposable mask at the White House press conference, thinking that very good liquids can be used to sterilize the mask and recycle it. He also suggested to study the injection of disinfectant into the human body to try treatment The new coronary pneumonia caused fierce criticism from the medical community.
At the same time, the general public in the United States generally believes that only infected people need to wear masks, and have no habit of washing their hands. From February 26 to March 16, in just three weeks, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States increased significantly from 15 to 4,226. Trump only began to realize the seriousness and agreed to recommend measures to maintain social distance across the country, 6 The states have successively announced home orders and closed all non-essential retail stores, causing economic stagnation in the US market. At present, the number of infected people in the US community is close to 3,000,000.
The American people generally believe that only people with illnesses need to wear masks.
Britain's Buddhist system fights against Italy
The British Prime Minister Johnson first adopted the "herd immunity" scheme, which was not closed to the city and did not intentionally suppress the spread. When the time comes, about 60% of the British nationals will produce immune antibodies after infection, and then the unimmunized nationals will be difficult to be infected. Take this to control the epidemic. Johnson admitted at the time that more families would lose their loved ones. The British government believes that premature implementation of strict segregation measures is more likely to cause resistance in the long-term compliance. Until mid-March, the number of daily confirmed cases in the UK continued to increase proportionally before the government announced measures such as segregation of the whole family and bans on gatherings of more than two people in public places, which has now caused more than 300,000 people to be diagnosed.
Italy is the European country with the worst epidemic situation. Only after the number of diagnoses has continued to deteriorate, the Italian government rushed to decide on March 10 across the country to prevent epidemics, schools, gyms, museums and nightclubs across the country. It was completely closed, while public gatherings were prohibited, and football matches and other sports events across the country were suspended.
Hong Kong's progressive epidemic prevention reduces economic damage
Compared with Europe and the United States, the Hong Kong government has responded more quickly. The first case was discovered in Hong Kong on January 22, and the first two initially confirmed cases were imported from Wuhan by high-speed rail. The government immediately imposed a limited customs clearance on the Hubei region, stopped the aviation and high-speed rail services between Hong Kong and Wuhan on January 24, and banned the entry of passengers from Hubei and Wuhan on January 27, and gradually closed the gateway connecting the mainland.
After the first case of community infection occurred on February 4, the Hong Kong government closed the port the next day, leaving only the three gates of Hong Kong International Airport, Shenzhen Bay Control Point and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge to continue to open to reduce the number of people between the mainland and Hong Kong Mobility, and listen to the opinions of experts, citing the law stipulating that all people who enter the Mainland must be subject to mandatory quarantine. Those who test positive must be sent to the hospital for treatment immediately, and those who have hidden test results must also be quarantined for 14 days.
The Hong Kong government implements a gradual customs clearance to reduce the flow of people between Hong Kong and various regions.
In addition, before the occurrence of local infection cases, schools and government civil servants have begun to suspend school and work at home from January 29. All the LCSD facilities began to close on January 29 and gradually implemented various epidemic prevention according to the epidemic situation. Measures, for example, on March 27, Hong Kong added 65 cases with the highest number of diagnoses in a single day. The government immediately announced a restriction order to close bars, movie theaters, karaoke venues, night clubs, etc.
Progressive implementation measures can prevent the public from becoming numb and lax under the long-term epidemic prevention, and reduce the economic damage caused to the shops and restaurants under the city's anti-epidemic. If the Hong Kong government imitates the European and American countries, implements the house order and closes all non-essential retail stores across the board, there may be a severe unemployment situation and economic recession like that in Europe and the United States. At present, due to economic problems, the United States has risked lifting some of the epidemic prevention measures. Within a few weeks after the relaxation of the measures, the number of confirmed diagnoses in several states has rebounded significantly. In contrast, in Hong Kong, only after the number of infections has steadily declined, some anti-epidemic measures have been relaxed. Some economic activities, including retail and catering, have gradually been brought closer to the initial level of the epidemic.
Government-private cooperation to respond to zero diagnosis in Hong Kong
In the early stage of the outbreak, due to the sudden surge in demand and global supply shortages, it caused panic buying masks. Many citizens were panicked due to the lack of masks. However, they may have accumulated SARS experience, and the health awareness of Hong Kong people is higher than other places. Wear masks when going out. As of June 30, there were only 1,204 confirmed cases in Hong Kong, and the infection rate was only 0.01%. Compared with 0.80% in the United States, 0.46% in the United Kingdom, 0.39% in Italy, and 0.77% in Singapore, Hong Kong’s epidemic prevention results are obvious to all.
Hong Kong experienced a shortage of masks from February to March. The major mask-making place, China, was shut down on a large scale due to the prevention and control of new coronary pneumonia, resulting in a serious global shortage of mask supply. Coupled with the fact that almost all industries in Hong Kong have moved north since the 1980s, Hong Kong does not have a local mask production line. At that time, the Hong Kong government took emergency measures and announced to subsidize the local production of masks in Hong Kong. With the cooperation of the government and the private sector, Hong Kong has built more than 20 mask production lines in just two months. Some local mask manufacturers started to supply masks in April, which has stabilized the supply of masks in Hong Kong. Some Hong Kong mask manufacturers are gradually trying to export masks produced in Hong Kong. Comparing the United States, Britain and Italy to this day, we still need to rely on imported masks from abroad. The United States even intercepts masks from other countries, which shows the rapid adaptability of the Hong Kong government and the people.
In just two months, Hong Kong has built more than 20 mask production lines.
As for medical facilities, the Hong Kong government has regularly announced the number of HA masks and protective equipment since February, and has carried out global procurement. The business community and the private sector have also cooperated to purchase and donate masks to all parties. In contrast, the United States found that hundreds of thousands of masks had no storage records, and the ventilator and protective equipment of the military warehouse had expired. When the epidemic broke out on a large scale, the US news media captured that due to insufficient supply of medical equipment, medical staff used garbage plastic bags as protective clothing and frozen container trucks as temporary morgues.
According to the news released by the International Council of Nurses on June 3, 2020, although there is no systematic and standard record of the number of medical infections and deaths in the world, according to the International Council of Nurses’ According to statistics, there are more than 230,000 medical staff worldwide infected with new coronary pneumonia and more than 600 medical deaths. Brazil alone has about 18,000 nurses diagnosed and at least 181 deaths. It is one of the countries with the most serious epidemics in the world. Hong Kong has not yet been diagnosed with medically diagnosed cases of New Coronary Pneumonia. It relies on the professionalism of Hong Kong medical staff and a high degree of protection awareness. The Hong Kong government has also responded quickly to the treatment of this new Coronary Pneumonia epidemic. Infection cases and mortality rates are among the lowest in the world. One.
Does big data epidemic prevention choose public health or privacy?
In many countries under the epidemic, scientific and technological institutions have tried to use big data and mobile phone programs to assist in the fight against the epidemic, so as to locate and track suspected infected persons, and assist the public health department to formulate policies. For example, the self-isolation app developed by the Korean government uses location technology to track the location of the diagnosed person, and it also publishes a virus map to show the whereabouts of the diagnosed person, allowing the public to check the risk avoidance.
Under the epidemic, many technology companies have cooperated to launch mobile phones or computer programs to track the spread.
This epidemic highlights that Hong Kong's technology application and data collection lags behind other countries, and it is unable to analyze the epidemic situation and population contact through big data like other Asian countries in order to quickly analyze and track the infected person. Instead, only major incident investigation and disaster support systems can be activated, so-called supercomputers to track the source of infection. During the SARS incident in 2003, the system was used to calculate and analyze areas with high infection rates, people and locations related to patients, and then used electronic maps to determine the range of patients' activities. The system can sort out people who have a higher probability of contacting patients and how often there have been large-scale infections in the places they have been to, and send notifications to relevant departments to prevent large-scale infections. However, due to lack of data, the information calculated by the supercomputer is very limited.
If you want to use technology to fight against epidemic efficiently, you need to collect a lot of information and data to build a smart city, but this will definitely cause concerns about privacy protection in the community. At present, many countries and scientific and technological institutions are exploring how to maximize the use of technology to fight against epidemics, while protecting personal privacy. Voluntary, anonymized, deletable, and adding artificial noise are the main ways Google protects privacy while collecting data on the flow of people in various countries. In order to keep the identity of infected persons confidential, South Korea will assign a code name for each diagnosed person, and will not disclose other personal information except for gender and age range. The German government has found technology giants Apple and Google to develop anti-epidemic mobile phone programs. User personal data will not be completely added to the government's central database.
However, netizens use mobile phones and computer programs every day. In fact, most of the data and information have been fully collected by technology companies for commercial purposes, and the boundaries for protecting their online privacy are actually quite blurred.
However, after the government announced on June 17 that it had significantly eased the restrictions on gatherings, in just two weeks, Hong Kong once again experienced outbreaks of community-confirmed diagnoses of unknown origin, and most of them were infected in tea restaurants. Although infectious disease experts believe that community outbreaks warn of the presence of invisible carriers in Hong Kong, it cannot be denied that with the government's substantial relaxation of the restriction order, citizens have become numb or taken carelessly. This also proves the necessity for the government to implement a restraining order on March 27 to reduce community infection.
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