Front Burner - COVID-19, Hong Kong, and a warning from the future

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

In the global fight against the spread of COVID-19, Hong Kong has been recognized for its success keeping the number of cases low despite its proximity to China. Today on Front Burner, Shibani Mahtani, the Washington Post’s Hong Kong and Southeast Asia bureau chief, talks to guest host Michelle Shephard about how they did it, and what preparations are underway now for a second wave of imported COVID-19 cases.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Michelle Shepard, filling in for Jamie Poisson. Efforts in Canada to contain COVID-19 are changing constantly, with the possibility of stricter measures coming. Nova Scotia declared a state of emergency, which means now all provinces in this country have declared some state of emergency or other. People cannot gather in groups of more than five. You can still go outside, but you walk to exercise, not to socialize.

Shops that are still open are mainly those providing essential services like grocery stores and pharmacies. Most restaurants only offer takeout. We are all being asked to just stay home. Individual Canadians behaving responsibly will help themselves, help their neighbours. And it's an unprecedented state for most Canadians. But a familiar one to those who felt the threat of COVID-19 as soon as the outbreak started growing in Wuhan, China.

In Hong Kong and Singapore, society-wide changes were adopted back in January, so they've already been through what we are just starting to experience. And in fact, what they're seeing now is a second wave with a spike of imported cases. On Friday, Hong Kong reported a record jump in coronavirus cases as thousands returned home from overseas.

So today, advice from the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is FrontBurner. I have Shabani Matani with me. She's the Hong Kong and Southeast Asian Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. She's from Singapore, but is based now in Hong Kong. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Before we talk about Hong Kong's approach to containing COVID-19, can you tell us what life looks like there right now? Yeah, so it's actually pretty surreal. Life was actually starting to go back to normal somewhat here in Hong Kong. People had been going to bars and restaurants and had actually started working from their offices again,

sort of in a reversal of what we'd been seeing in the West, right, where things have slowly shut down until the past maybe five days or so where the government has seen a huge spike in cases, a vast majority of them imported from those countries. For more, I'm joined by Dr. Alfred Wong, a cardiologist in Hong Kong. We have huge waves of students and expats coming back from Europe and America. We have seen a surge of patients in town past the number of 270. And now things are basically shutting down again.

So this weekend really did seem like, you know, we went back to January and we would be back in time till, you know, about six weeks ago. And as of tomorrow, all the government offices will be closed again and people will be working from home again. And what's that been like for you personally? How you may have changed your routine or habits back in January, then things got back to near normal, and then here you are again. Yeah, I mean, I think Hong Kong was always in sort of a unique situation because this virus obviously started right as protests were kind of dying down, right? So it was basically months of disruption and weirdness and craziness here. This is sort of the latest iteration of that. There were periods in November and in December where people were working from home and universities were closed

because of the protests. Tourist numbers have halved after six months of anti-government demonstrations. Hong Kong's central cross-harbour tunnel remains blocked. Schools are also shut for a second week. This man asks what he'll do, says the protests leave him no choice but to go home and not work. And so I think we're quite primed for it. But yeah, obviously Hong Kong's proximity to mainland china when this was first discovered made people very very anxious right i remember distinctly in december uh a

colleague of mine who is from mainland china but but works out here in hong kong uh was saying you know have you heard of this virus in wuhan from this you know seafood market like we really got to start stocking up on mass we got to start stocking up on masks. We got to start stocking up on supplies. We were a bit like, okay, I mean, I think you're jumping the gun here. But yeah, that was like December 31st. People, when they initially saw this stuff happening, I mean, they didn't take any chances whatsoever. I remember even in the first week of January, the government had started protecting or rather issuing directives

to healthcare workers to protect themselves. Because, you know, obviously, the memory of SARS runs very, very deep here. And that affected healthcare workers primarily. And they were really front and centre of this without even knowing what was happening back in 2003. David Hoy was one of the key doctors treating SARS patients, many of them his colleagues. So the index patient came in and within two weeks he infected 138. Simon Tse and his wife Rosa were two of the 1,800 people in Hong Kong infected with SARS. When I was in intensive care, I felt even more scared.

I couldn't breathe. Never in my whole life had I felt that I couldn't breathe. So I guess I'm jumping ahead a little bit. No, that's OK. I was going to say we definitely are going to get to the issue of SARS. But before we do get there, to bring you back to December and January, I think I remember the first time really noticing what was happening there and the preparations were underway for the Lunar New Year

and all that ground to a halt. Beijing's authorities have cancelled New Year celebrations as a precaution, but health officials fear the transmission of the virus will accelerate as people across China travel for celebrations. Tell me what that was like. Yeah, so, you know, it's actually really interesting observing people all sort of freak out in the West about staying at home and, you know, it's actually really interesting observing people sort of freak out in the West about staying at home and, you know, canceling social events and so on. Because essentially what all of mainland China and Hong Kong had to do was cancel an event that's as big as Christmas, Thanksgiving, you know, every religious holiday sort of put together for this part of the world, right? I mean, it is a time where you see millions of people having saved up, you know, their whole year's worth of salaries to be able to travel back home, to be able to

see relatives, to be able to, you know, spend on banquets and give out red packets to their, you know, nieces, nephews, and so on. And all of that was cancelled. Have you ever seen a Chinese New Year like this so slow? No, never. Never in your life? Since the 50th year, 50th year, I haven't seen for that. It was quite surreal compared to, obviously, the previous Lunar New Year and the previous Chinese New Year.

Just in terms of the volume of people who were out on the streets, I mean, it was dead. It was really surreal. And a lot of people obviously had taken heed that mass banquets and mass gatherings, meals like hot pot and stuff were like ground zero, right, for how this virus spread. So a lot of that was being cancelled.

And a lot of inbound and travel between mainland China and Hong Kong had also halted, which is, yeah, a big proportion of the people that you normally see on the streets. So that was definitely, yeah, the first indication that this was going to be, you know, a big deal. Do you remember seeing there were protests of health care workers that were demanding that the border with China be closed? If they don't close the border and allow the people from China to spread the virus in our community, all Hong Kong citizens and the medical staff will be in danger. It sounds like the government obviously acted very quickly. But did that have an impact on maybe

pushing the government into action even faster? Was that effective? Totally, yeah. So I mean, Hong Kong is in this really unique situation where obviously, they do have a border with china and they do in theory control their own uh immigration and checkpoints but they're also you know sovereignty lies here with with beijing not not with hong kong um and i think that that is a that's been a very difficult thing to manage um you know throughout the protest that was uh the major sticking point and a lot of people when they you, you know, initially heard about this disease, were like, thinking it's going to be SARS-2. And, you know, they were bracing for

hundreds of deaths in Hong Kong. And they were like, the government needs to act now. And basically, while our cells are from mainland China, or this is going to be 2003 repeating itself all over again. SARS killed nearly 300 people in Hong Kong and infected 8,000 globally. And that primarily impacted medical workers who are on the front lines of treating this new virus in 2003 without knowing what they were treating. And so I think that the outcome of that was this medical worker strike, which was really impactful, I think, and really stunning for people all over the world to see.

I just want here to support all my colleagues in case to save all the citizens in Hong Kong. And I think that if there was any hesitation from the Hong Kong government about whether they should take more drastic moves early on like that, they realized what you know, what, what, what would happen to them, right? If emergency medical workers essentially stopped working and going to the hospitals, which they did for about a period of a week and had widespread support of society. And so even though Hong Kong never fully closed all their borders with mainland

China, you saw the dominoes start falling, Then it was a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arrivals from mainland China. And tell me a little bit about these quarantine centers that they set up. What were the rules that were involved with that? And what did they look like? Pretty much overnight, right? They instituted these quarantine centers, mandatory 14-day quarantines. And these facilities, a lot of them are brand new or sort of newly refurbished or kitted out for this purpose. A lot of arrivals, I think all of them now, because obviously now that there's a mandatory quarantine for all foreign arrivals,

they're tagged with an electronic wristband and it's really hard to remove. with an electronic wristband and it's really hard to remove. And if you do, you're liable to, I think, six months in jail or the equivalent of a US$4,000 fine. The city says it has 20,000 of the bracelets. Returning resident Angela Fan is sceptical. Download this app and then you have to walk around in your house to detect how big your house is. So as soon as you get out the the government

would get alert so yes it's pretty strict and and they wrote up all this new legislation and laws um to basically you know make sure that there were some penalties right for for breaching the terms of your quarantine and actually these these um isolation centers uh these quarantine facilities were so uh i think nice and like the the food it provided was was pretty good that about two weeks ago that the government put out a note that they were going to start charging people for using it if they kept going back and forth because a lot of people were just gaming the system really and just staying staying longer than their 14 day period yeah yeah or they'd just come in and out so they'd go to shenzhen and then they'd come back to hong kong for like five days and be like oh great have like free meals and like a nice place to stay free and then they would go back to china

and then they would come back to hong kong and stay in the facility again and so and so now now they're charging people for multiple visits it's a isolation center, aside from the lovely service they were getting, I know that Hong Kong's culture is, of course, very different from Canada. But some of those measures, I know, would definitely there'd be much debate here about having that kind of tracking. Were there any protests for that type of surveillance, or any of the quarantine centers or was it largely general acceptance? No, not at all. I mean, I think the sense here is that if you, you know, breach these protocols and these quarantine measures, then you are putting society at risk. You're putting the elderly at risk. You're putting people who live on top of

each other in extremely tiny flats and in very close quarters at risk. And I think universally, these measures have been accepted and praised. 9-11, right? It was something that crippled the economy, caused quite a big number of deaths, you know, relative to the size of the population, and just really, really scared people. And especially because of the way the city is laid out and how close people live to each other. Those who lived through Hong Kong's darkest days describe psychological terror, only stretched out for months. I think all Hong Kong people were scared something like SARS would happen again in Hong Kong. All people. It changed things so fundamentally here

that I think people were definitely willing to do whatever it takes and accept whatever it takes. And I mean, what's been really interesting now is all these new clusters and new waves of infection are not coming from people coming from Wuhan or mainland China, but they're coming from Europeans, they're coming from Americans, they're coming from expats, right? Expats who've been out like partying at clubs and bars over the past week. And the Hong Kong media have totally criticized them for just not taking this seriously and not being as vigilant as they should,

but just not taking this seriously and not, you know, being as vigilant as they should, which means that I don't think they're discriminating against, you know, whether you're from mainland China, whether you're from Europe, as long as you are not seen to be, you know, acting responsibly. I think people get very, very upset with you here. Well, so interesting because there's been so many discussions here among people saying, you know, once we get through this, society is going to change, we're going to learn how to live differently. And it sounds like from what you're saying, that lesson really was already learned because of SARS in Hong Kong. I mean, I understand that people, you know, hand sanitizer and masks are just way more acceptable there. They've always been used there in the last 17

years since SARS. Do you think that that is in part why Hong Kong has been able to accept this in a different way than other parts of the world? Totally. And I think it's also why Hong Kong went beyond the government quite early on. It's notable that shops, restaurants, bars, gyms, none of those ever really closed here at all, not from January till till now but people especially in in the beginning especially during the January period just like self isolated and and and a lot of people had no problem doing that people who live through SARS and in terms of the way it sort of changed

society you know when I when I covered one of the protests last year it was one of those like hand-holding protests, you know, to form kind of like a human chain that went through Hong Kong. Free Hong Kong! Free Hong Kong! And this was maybe in August or September. People were passing hand sanitizer down the line because nobody wanted to touch each other's hands unless they had sanitized first. So stuff like that is sort of really built into people. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. And how is Singapore doing right now?

I understand you just went back there to visit a few weeks ago. Is there anything we can learn from here in Canada from how Singapore has handled it? Yeah, I think in Singapore, you know, when you talk about aggressive government and, you know, civil liberty is sort of being totally suspended at this point. Singapore has been very, very notable for how aggressive they've been at contact tracing, which I think is really quite unheard of. So they essentially have their FBI equivalent kind of trace every single person that could have come into contact with a positive coronavirus case. My fellow Singaporeans, each time we've been able to isolate them, do contact tracing and quarantine the close contacts.

Which is pretty crazy. I think people are willing to do what it takes and they're willing to accept the trade-off. Singapore also notably never fully shut down and never fully closed bars or restaurants. When I was there, I think it was about three weeks ago now, it didn't seem like everyone was wearing surgical masks, which is definitely a thing in Hong Kong because people here are so afraid of community spread. And also Singapore never closed schools. And in some cases, businesses also continued working from their offices. And I think that is sort of testament to the government's ability to manage it and to really, really aggressively identify those clusters and aggressively identify people who could have come into contact with positive cases, right? That really helped them kind of stay ahead of the curve.

So interesting. I just I don't know if those measures are being even, well, they are being debated to some degree here, but not to that level. And I just can't imagine that there would be the same compliance in other countries that you've seen there. Yeah, totally. But yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is all these countries, I mean, Singapore, Hong Kong, certainly Taiwan, South Korea, they're just also very, very good at testing. And right now they're testing everyone who arrives from anywhere pretty aggressively. And they've set up in Singapore, they're setting up these testing centers within the airport itself.

In Hong Kong, they're doing it in a building very, very close to the airport. So they're sort of getting on top of it from the get-go and testing even people who could be asymptomatic, right, and putting them in sort of mandatory isolation, which I think will do a lot to stave off these new wave of imported cases before things get unmanageable. Yeah, how are people dealing with this news of these imported cases? Yeah, how are people dealing with this news of these imported cases? There must be some frustration thinking that this had been handled, that it had been contained, and now it's back to where you were. Authorities fear the influx of people could lead to a community outbreak and paralyse the city's medical system.

What's the mood like, and what do you think comes next? Yeah, very much so, which is why I think the mood as an expat and somebody who obviously has a lot of expat friends, I think the mood from Hong Kong people towards expats is definitely souring because they're like, why can't you guys get it together? Wear masks, sanitize, stay at home, don't go out to clubs and don't go out to bars. What's wrong with you people? sanitize, stay at home, don't go out to clubs and don't go out to bars. Like what's wrong with you people? And so, yeah, I think people are definitely frustrated because there's a perception that they got it under control and things got relaxed. And, you know, that there were photos that were like going viral of this like major bar street in Hong Kong, where it was absolutely jam packed. I mean,

it was very much the opposite of social distancing. And this was about two weeks ago. You know, I think that there is some frustration there. And there's also a sense that Hong Kong and Singapore have become a victim of their own success, right? So because the healthcare systems are so good, because they've had very few number of deaths, and because they seem to be able to treat it. And so many people have been recovering and walking out of the hospital is fine. People from neighboring countries, which don't trust the healthcare system, are starting to come and try to get treated there. That is obviously a dangerous thing, right? Because you could have a huge, you know, swell of people who might be positive,

who you can't control and who could end up collapsing your healthcare system. So I think both Hong Kong and Singapore have taken pretty unprecedented measures to essentially close their borders, the same way you're seeing pretty much all over the world right now, just to make sure that their healthcare systems can work the way they should for the population, you know, that's

here. Shabani, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate this and take care of yourself there. Yeah, thank you. You too. Shabani just talked about how many people in Hong Kong were ready to accept strict measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. Well, here in Canada, that's proving to be more of a challenge. On Sunday, Federal Health Minister Patti Hajdu said she's looking at possible criminal penalties for Canadian travellers who don't self-isolate when they get home. When we say that you must stay at home for 14 days, that means you stay at home for 14 days. No exceptions. Let me be perfectly clear. We will use every measure in our toolbox at the federal level to ensure compliance. And in other COVID-19 news, Rand Paul is the first U.S. senator to test positive for the novel coronavirus.

According to a statement from his office, the Kentucky Republican is, quote, feeling fine. There were a few Senate Republicans who expressed their concern on Sunday as Paul was recently seen socializing in close quarters with colleagues. He was also swimming at the Capitol Hill gym on Sunday morning. They'll be seeking medical advice in the coming days. That's it for today.

I'm Michelle Shepard, in for Jamie Poisson. Talk to you tomorrow. Jamie Poisson. Talk to you tomorrow.