let's go! 2022｜The beginning of the year is the end of the epidemic, and the panic of the whole city will become normal after the outbreak

The new crown pneumonia epidemic has hit Hong Kong for three years, but this year is the most severe period of the epidemic.

The mutated virus strain Omicron entered Hong Kong at the beginning of the year, the number of confirmed cases exploded exponentially, and the medical system collapsed. Countless infected elderly people braved the cold wind outside the emergency room and waited to be admitted to the hospital until they died. The scene of human corpses crowded together in the emergency room was unforgettable. At the end of the month, the number of confirmed cases dropped, giving public medical services room to breathe.

At the same time as the outbreak in Hong Kong, Western countries are gradually returning to normal.

However, at that time, the government still emphasized the need to "dynamically clear zero". It was not until the middle of the year that many experts publicly called for the relaxation of epidemic prevention measures. Chief Executive Lee Ka-chao then proposed "steady and steady" relaxation, and there is no road map for Hong Kong's return to normal. .

However, the Hong Kong government's relaxation of epidemic prevention is often criticized as "step-by-step relaxation", and the vaccine pass and mask orders are still retained.

As the mainland announced that it will "switch" from January 8 next year, the road to normalcy has come to an end, but in the last two weeks of 2022, the epidemic situation in Hong Kong has worsened.

▼On March 2, there were patients waiting in the outdoor tent of the emergency department of Caritas Hospital▼

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The dead and the dead share the same ward in the hospital

The Omicron virus strain entered Hong Kong at the beginning of 2022, kicking off the anti-epidemic prelude. Several groups broke out in Hong Kong in a short period of time, including Cathay Pacific airlines who violated quarantine regulations and went to restaurants to eat and spread, and Pakistani women who returned to Hong Kong from Dubai, etc. .

In the early stage of the epidemic, the Hong Kong government announced a number of anti-epidemic measures to slow down community transmission, including sealing off many buildings in Kwai Chung Village for five days.

▼On March 4th, citizens bought testing reagents in large quantities▼

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Failure to recognize quick test results causes confusion

At that time, because the government did not recognize the rapid test, citizens waited for six or seven hours outside the testing center in the sun and rain for testing. patient.

Although the Hospital Authority immediately changed its words three days later and told the public not to go to the emergency room, due to the increasing number of confirmed cases, many hospitals had elderly people braving the cold wind outside the emergency room waiting to be admitted to the hospital. In the picture of the ward, even calling for an ambulance had to wait up to 39 hours before being sent to the hospital by medical staff.

▼Displacement of Queen Elizabeth's remains on March 4▼

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▼Nurses from mainland China went to AWE to help take care of patients▼

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About 1.2 million people were diagnosed during the fifth wave of the epidemic. Coupled with the rapid increase in vaccinations under the epidemic, the community has established an immune barrier. At this time, many places around the world are gradually returning to normal, and many local experts believe that it is time to relax epidemic prevention measures.

Kong Fanyi, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, was among the first experts to propose relaxation of epidemic prevention measures. As early as the end of March this year, he had proposed to relax epidemic prevention measures from June to July.

Yuan Guoyong, a government expert consultant, wrote an article in a newspaper in May, arguing that it is time to relax the epidemic prevention measures in stages; Xu Shuchang, also one of the government expert consultants, also stated in early May that the risk of relaxation was controllable, but none of his opinions were taken seriously by the Hong Kong government at that time.

The Director of the Medical and Health Bureau, Lu Chongmao, even "opened his mouth" and asked the experts of the Government Expert Advisory Committee to release the news in a unified manner after the committee has fully communicated.

It was not until the end of September that Chief Executive Lee Ka-chao proposed to relax the measures "steadily" and introduced "0+3" entry quarantine measures, and the epidemic prevention measures were gradually relaxed.

However, because the relevant relaxation is too insignificant, it has been criticized by many experts as a "step-by-step relaxation".

In recent days, the mainland has suddenly relaxed its anti-epidemic measures, and Hong Kong has only followed suit. In mid-December, it stopped requiring scanning measures to travel with peace of mind and revoked the yellow code restrictions on entry.

▼On December 23, the airport reappeared the crowds of tourists▼

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After the Hong Kong government relaxed the entry and epidemic prevention restrictions, the number of foreign visitors entering the airport at the end of September was only a few hundred per day, while the number of mainland visitors was more than 1,000; as of recently, the number of foreign visitors has risen to nearly 4,000, while the number of mainland tourists is about 2,000.

But there is still a long period of isolation from the nearly 25,000 daily foreign visitors before the epidemic.

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