Monthly Archives: February 2022

Announcements and reports (dense press releases here and here, lighter RTHK reads here and here, HKFP here) confirm that Hong Kong authorities are relaxing certain anti-Covid measures. Examples include handing out rapid test kits rather than using slower compulsory testing, … Continue reading →

Parallels between Ukraine and (potentially) Taiwan are inexact, but several come to mind. First, obviously, an irredentist dictatorship is invading a free democratic country. Second, assuming they conquer the place, what will the Russians do with it and its largely … Continue reading →

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan delivers his Budget. Among the exciting highlights… At the first sign of a slight weakening in housing prices, mortgage-cap relaxation to help prop up the market. Money-down-the-toilet subsidies for InnoLife healthtech hub-zones and companies … Continue reading →

Covid cases in Hong Kong have reached 7,000 a day and are probably doubling every three days. Despite this, flights from the US, UK, the Philippines, India and other places remain banned to keep out a possible handful of infected … Continue reading →

There are forces of nature. There is the power of science. But nothing can override Leninist target-setting. Loyalists declare that Beijing is giving Hong Kong two months to get the Covid outbreak under control. While Hong Kong officials and media … Continue reading →

Reuters on how Hong Kong’s Covid cure is worse than the disease… Tracing, testing, treatment and quarantine resources still target every infection instead of prioritising high-risk groups, such as the elderly, causing widespread frustration.  (Not to mention arbitrary and cruel … Continue reading →

Hong Kong authorities consider city-wide Covid testing. How can they roll this out with just one or two weeks’ notice? Do 7.5 million people have to line up for hours? In the streets? In bad weather? (Apparently, it would be … Continue reading →

How’s this for a dilemma? Local state newspapers again warn Hong Kong – in Xi Jinping’s name – to suppress the Covid outbreak at all costs. And a loyalist advisor says that Beijing above all fears social instability here. Does … Continue reading →

The pandemic rages, and it is clear that Hong Kong’s leaders never bothered to plan for the stage when infections hit over 2,000 a day. But relax – the authorities have everything in place to protect us from a singer … Continue reading →

I thought everyone at the SCMP had gone to Bloomberg, but apparently there’s still someone left. This story crystalizes (perhaps unwittingly) the deranged politics behind Hong Kong’s futile campaign to eradicate the Covid virus from its shores. After much blather … Continue reading →