Bad living conditions for many in HKG, raises virus risk

During the 2003 SARS period, more than 40 residents of Amoy Gardens, a middle-class, high-rise private housing estate, died and 329 were infected . The investigators found severe watery diarrhea from infected people carried the virus into other people’s apartments in the form of tiny aerosols that were probably drawn by exhaust fans into the air from the building’s sewage system.  

The coronavirus began spreading in a Hong Kong hotel after it was introduced by an infected doctor visiting from Guangdong. From there, it passed to other hotel guests, who took it with them on airplanes to Canada, Ireland, the U.S., Vietnam and Singapore, illustrating the city’s potential to cultivate and disseminate pathogens internationally.  

 

Economic Shock  

 

SARS infected 1,755 people in Hong Kong, killing 300, and caused economic losses totaling HK$3.8 billion ($490 million) in two months alone as tourist arrivals dwindled and businesses from restaurants to taxi cabs slumped.  

 

Last year, 56.5 million people transited the city’s airport -- 65 % more than in 2002. By the time SARS petered out in August 2003, the virus had spread to more than two dozen countries and three regions, causing 8,096 cases and 774 deaths.  

 

Hong Kong acts as a transit point from China to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to the world, That virus was discovered in a goose in Guangdong in 1996, seven years before it infected members of a Hong Kong family who had traveled to mainland China. The bird flu strain then spread across Asia and into Europe and Africa.  

 

Since SARS, Hong Kong established a Centre for Health Protection in June 2004 with a HK$500 million donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The center now has an annual budget of about HK$1.6 billion. The government has also established a HK$500 million research fund for the control of infectious diseases after the SARS outbreak in 2003. That’s strengthened the city’s ability to detect and respond to emerging infectious disease threats.  

 

While newer laboratory testing tools have made surveillance more efficient, the city’s growing population and status as an international hub have increased the challenge of detecting potential threats. Cities are where some infectious diseases love to move between people nice and efficiently.  

 

Hong Kong has added more than 400,000 people the past decade. Many newcomers usually travels frequently to the Mainland and willing to sacrifice personal space for higher earning potential in the world’s 10th-largest banking center and third-busiest container port.  

 

‘Cage Homes’

Hong Kong electrician Chan is one of them, he shares a mold-stained toilet with his neighbors, says he’d move out if it weren’t for the rising cost of accommodation.  Chan’s one-room dwelling is smaller than some single-person cells in the city’s correctional centers, which are typically 62 square feet at Stanley prison and 77 square feet at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre.

These Cramped living space in ‘cage homes,’  has become the reluctant choice for thousands of Hong Kong people.   Even as officials pledge to improve the affordability of housing, a scarcity of land, long waiting lists for public housing and the constant influx of people mean prices will stay high in the short term.  Chan barely survives on a monthly wage of HK$11,000 ($1,418) -- close to the HK$12,000 median income in Hong Kong -- after paying his bills and sending money to his family in mainland China.

And If you have seen these "cage homes", you'll know how lucky you are!