The SUN HK : HK suffers worst ever economic slump due to pandemic

By The SUN

Hong Kong is going through a record economic downturn amid the pandemic

Hong Kong’s economy has shrunk 6.1 percent last year, its worst ever performance, amid the continuing onslaught of the coronavirus.

Previously, the city’s worst economic performance was recorded in 1998, when battered by the Asian financial crisis, the city’s GDP (gross domestic product) fell by 5.9 percent.

It’s the second straight year the economy has shrunk, falling by 1.2 percent in 2019.

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The news comes as health officials reported 50 new coronavirus infections Friday, all but two locally acquired. The city now has a total of 10,371 confirmed cases.

One of the imported cases was a 33-year-old man who arrived on Jan 27 from Dubai, and was found with the highly infectious variant from either Britain or South Africa. The second was a 44-year-old Indonesian foreign domestic helper who just arrived from Jakarta.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection said a partial evacuation of residents from Block R at Luk Yeung Sun Chuen in Tsuen Wan has been ordered, after a cluster of Covid-19 cases emerged there.

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Six residents from four different units on the 18^th floor of Block R tested either positive or preliminary positive, so those living in the remaining four flats on the same floor will be moved to a quarantine center.

“After the confirmation of the first case, we’ve advised thorough disinfection. But we found that there’s some clustering of the case on that floor, so as a precautionary measure, we’ll arrange all the residents in the other four units to stay in the quarantine camp because they might have been expose to similar risks as the other cases,” Chuang said.

She added the transmission might have occurred through common areas, such as the lift lobby, the corridors, or the rubbish dump.

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Of the 48 local cases, 16 were untraceable. More than 30 preliminary positive cases were also recorded.

Eleven of the confirmed patients live in Kowloon City, seven in Yau Tsim Mong, four in Jordan, and three in Sham Shui Po.

Also included were five workers involved in the redevelopment of Kwong Wah Hospital. Compulsory testing will be issued to all workers and anyone else who spent at least two hours at the site.

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An outbreak was also reported from Harbourfront Horizon, a serviced apartment block, in Hung Hom. Five security guards and a repairman have tested positive for the virus, prompting the evacuation of dozens of staff.

No new infections were found in Tung Fat building after the lockdown

Earlier, a second “ambush lockdown” and mandatory testing ordered by the government at four blocks of Tung Fat building in North Point yielded no new infection.

Of the 475 people tested at blocks A, B, C and D of the building on Kam Ping Street, not a single Covid-19 infection was found. But two environmental samples taken from there tested positive for Covid-19.

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An estimated 1,000 people live in the affected blocks, but the authorities said nobody answered the door at 190 households, and will follow up with the tenants.

The lockdown which took effect at 7pm Thursday, ended after 12 hours, when the test results on the residents were known. By 7am, everyone who could show a negative test result was allowed to leave the secured premises.

Thirteen people living in block C of the 56-year-old residential building were earlier found infected. Residents of units 6 and 7 in the block were evacuated and sent to quarantine center.