Hong Kong, Buckling Under Covid, Leaves Its Most Vulnerable in the Cold

HONG KONG — For Chan Shun Ki, a cleaner at a construction site in Hong Kong, getting over the coronavirus was the easy part.

Ms. Chan was eager for a return to work after having been absent for more that a week during her recovery. She had already skipped her rent payments after the pandemic that decimated her previous jobs at waiting tables and cleaning hotels. To make up the $83 daily loss in her wage, she borrowed money from family.

The government health system sent her a text message, stating that it was struggling with a long backlog. It told her to stay home for another two weeks because her coronavirus test had come back positive. She had taken it 12 day earlier.

“I feel so much pressure,” said Ms. Chan, who is a single mother of a 15-year-old. “The government is really incompetent, and it leaves us residents not knowing what to do.”

As Hong Kong falls under its fifth and worst coronavirus virus wave, the brunt of the disaster is being felt by its most vulnerable: migrants and racial minority groups, as well as the working class. Although the city has been a place of extreme inequality for many years, the price of that inequality has never been so high. As of now.

This is due in part to the sheer magnitude of this wave that has resulted, in two months, in more than 250,000 infections and 800 deaths — multiple times as many as in the previous four waves combined. Because there is not enough space in morgues, bodies have piled up in hospital hallways. Older patients were left outdoors on gurneys.

But some claim that government policy has also contributed to the suffering. Under direction from the central Chinese authorities, Hong Kong officials have insisted on some of the world’s most stringent social distancing rules, crippling many service industries. But they have not managed to contain the virus.

Because the government no longer has isolation facilities, poor residents living in cramped apartments have spread this virus to their families. Because they can’t prove they are positive, those who have recovered cannot return to work.

Migrant domestic workers are mainly from Southeast Asia and work as cleaners and caregivers. They have been forced to live on the streets and fired after they fell ill. (Hong Kong law requires the workers to live in their employers’ homes.) Although vegetable prices have soared in recent years, the government has provided limited cash relief.

Sometimes, officials have actively resisted efforts to help the less fortunate. A top official threatened prosecution of members of the public who raise funds for migrants and were found to be in violation social distancing rules.

Roger Chung is a professor of public ethics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He said that the containment measures could do as much damage as the virus to low-income people.

“I don’t think the goal of protecting people’s health from Covid-19 is the only incontestable goal” in policymaking, he said. “Because these policies can also take a toll on other people’s well-being, especially in destabilizing their income and livelihoods.”

Even before the pandemic, Hong Kong’s inequality was staggering. It is home to more billionaires than any other city, but it also has more than 200,000 people. Residents live in carved-up tenement houses with 48 square feet of living space.

Even more dangerous is the condition of dilapidated housing, which can be a risky option in the midst of a pandemic. Because multiple households share one apartment, the plumbing needs to be reconfigured frequently. Faulty installation can lead to the spread of the virus between floors. Transmission has also been facilitated by insufficient ventilation.

Social distancing can be impossible. Ms. Chan, a single mom, shares a 1-room apartment with her child. He also fell ill a few days after she was.

Some residents have taken to sleeping on their roofs or in stairwells to avoid spreading disease to their loved ones. The Society for Community Organization, an organization that is not for profit, stated that it has received nearly 300 calls for assistance from people who are isolated at home and without access to food or medical supplies since January’s fifth wave.

Migrant domestic workers make up approximately 10 percent of the workforce. They have very few legal rights and are often discriminated against because of their inability to access isolation facilities.

Inah, an Indonesian worker, began to cough on February 21. Inah, an Indonesian worker who has been living in Hong Kong for three years, began to cough on February 21. Her employer told her she would not be allowed to return to her home until she had received a negative test. Inah refused to give her first name because she was afraid of losing her job.

For hours, she stood in the rain outside her employer’s home. Her employer finally allowed her in at midnight. She told her to go straight into her room and not use the bathroom. She was kicked out of her apartment again the next morning.

“Why do you just push me; you never helped me with anything?” said Inah, who eventually found a place to stay through the nonprofit HELP for Domestic Workers.

HELP’s executive director, Manisha Wijesinghe, said that, over five days in February, the group took in nearly 70 workers who had become homeless after testing positive.

Hong Kong’s Labor Department said in a statement that firing domestic workers for illness was illegal.

However, discrimination has been alleged against the authorities. Last month, after the government tightened restrictions on group gatherings, the police announced they had conducted a raid in an area where domestic workers “commonly gather” and issued 17 tickets. The $640 per person fine is more than the workers’ minimum monthly wage.

Some residents responded by organizing an internet fund-raiser to collect $14,000 within three days. Law Chi-kwong the labor secretary, accused them of encouraging illegal activities and promised legal action. The organizers stopped the fund-raiser.

Even residents who have avoided infection are straining under the pandemic’s economic burden.

The prices of vegetable shot up after one-fifth of the city’s vegetable truck drivers were left unable to work because of quarantine rules. (About 90 percent of Hong Kong’s produce comes from mainland China.) According to official statistics, the average price of Chinese lettuce was almost three times that of a month ago in February. The prices of tomatoes and potatoes have almost doubled.

Chan Lap To owns a vegetable stand in western Hong Kong Island. He said that most customers were buying less. He had to raise prices. He also ran the stall and sold vegetables to restaurants and hotels. The unstable supply and weak demand had caused the business to plummet by half.

He stated that he did not receive any government aid to cover his losses. “This is very unfair for all Hong Kong people,” Mr. Chan said. “It’s all connected.”

The government has offered financial assistance to certain industries, and the last week,Officials proposed a $22 billion relief package that included approximately $1,300 vouchers for most residents. Some businesses were not eligible for the previous subsidies. And the vouchers are digital, meaning they cannot be used for rent or at ubiquitous stalls like Mr. Chan’s that accept only cash.

Hong Kong does not have unemployment insurance. Last month, the government promised to make $1,300 payment to those who lost their jobs in the fifth wave. However, those who were unemployed at a younger age were not eligible.

For Ms. Chan, the government’s promises may bring temporary relief. Ms. Chan really wants to go back to work. To do this, she would like to see more severe measures, such as a lockdown across the city, to keep coronavirus cases under control.

“Dragging along like this, so I can’t work for several months — this is no way to do things,” she said. “Short-term pain is better than long-term pain.”

Joy DongContributed reporting