Yes. I know it’s a lot. I had little option really.

Hong Kong has been beset by Omicron in the last couple of weeks. Today there were 1,325 cases here, which doesn’t sound a lot if you’re in the UK but against a background of virtually none for months, it is a real shock. Until very recently the HK government and many local people were content to see Covid as a problem largely brought in by and confined to foreigners and, to be fair, it was most completely contained by our long quarantine regime. Many people, especially those in older age groups saw no necessity to be vaccinated since it was a “foreigners’ problem.” Yes. Someone did actually say that to me. Those of us who did make sure we had the vaccinations as soon as we could and assiduously followed the mask-wearing and social distancing rules feel a little aggrieved by this attitude.

And then a couple of cargo pilots broke their company rules, and people started buying hamsters and attending birthday parties and dancing breakfasts or whatever, and Omicron took hold and suddenly it was a problem for “proper” Hong Kongers. A statistic by @Tripperhead today shows shows this fairly clearly:

Discovery Bay, with its particular drainage system and its large (though now decreasing) concentration of foreigners and aircrew has uncovered Covid-laced sewage samples and has therefore been under a Compulosry Testing Notification since Wednesday. Concurrently, the entirety of the shops and restaurants in DB Plaza have had imposed a Compulsory Testing Notification for two tests between yesterday and next Monday. All of the businesses are closed for a couple of days to undergo theatrical deep cleaning, including our Fusion supermarket.

Apparently, the North Plaza of Discovery Bay was unaffected and open as normal, but of course quickly ran out of stock as people flocked there today and that is how I, still largely vegetarian, found myself popping across to the expensive, high end CitySuper in the swanky International Financial Centre (IFC) that’s just a ferry-hop away to buy a basket of vegetables at an extortionate price. Supply and demand, you see. You will notice the oranges (for my daily breakfast orange juice shot) are shrink-wrapped in twos. Last week these same oranges were for sale in a net bag of five but now they are scarce and precious and present a marketing opportunity in the languages of Dad’s Army’s Private Walker to those of us who have a breakfast vitamin routine. The supply of fresh produce  in a city state dependent on imports has already been cut because of the recent more restictive rules for cargo aircrews as it is.

Since the Plaza is the heart of the township, that means that around 20,000 people are have to undergo PCR tests. Twice.  There are 3,500 testing slots per day in DB and long queues have formed quite early in the mornings, with some people queuing for three or four hours just to get a ticket that permits them to undergo a test that takes about a minute to perform. Some of us have gone elsewhere for our tests: I consider myself relatively fortunate that my wait for a test at the airport’s mobile testing centre – relatively quiet for obvious reasons – was only a bit over two hours yesterday afternoon. I’ll be off there again tomorrow morning for my second test. Yes, apparently a spit test will meet requirements for the second test, but these are few and difficult to come by. I’m told that people queued at a local post office for twenty minutes this morning for these spit tests and they all ran out in five minutes.

The alternative: a fine of HKD 10,000 (around £950) for not meeting the Compulsory Testing Notice requirements. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather spend that on.

A general atmosphere of quiet panic has set in: the beach is closed and people are now allowed to congregate only in twos. Why deep clean an outdoor space when the virus can’t survive for long outside a host? Why test twice in two days if the limited testing capacity means that results aren’t back for over two days? Why insist that everyone has a test when you don’t provide anywhere near enough testing capacity? Why threaten to impose a huge fine when you barely publicise a double testing requirement? Why shut down a supermarket and thereby encourage panic buying and profiteering? So many questions. The answers, when given, often defy logic.

It reminds me a little of the situation of food shortages in my own country, that has taken the opposite approach to dealing with the Covid virus, but has thoughtlessly lumbered itself with Brexit. Isolation causes huge problems for people without the means to pay extra. An article in the FT today suggests that Beijing is unhappy with our perceived laxity and would like to impose a full lockdown on us. These are frightening times.