Quarantine operations need to be handled better, experts say
Officials advised to focus on the logistics of mass evacuation after chaos and problems of last week
Authorities must plan large quarantine operations better and should consider breaking up mass evacuations into batches, a former health minister and a medical expert have said following the chaos that erupted after thousands of residents were sent into isolation last week.
Problems and complaints – including claims of food poisoning at quarantine camps – could be avoided if officials adopted a more cohesive approach to the logistics involved, they said yesterday as authorities confirmed four new coronavirus cases, all imported.
The Department of Health said more manpower would be added to help deal with residents’ needs as quickly as possible.
Residents of entire housing blocks were simultaneously evacuated last Wednesday after the discovery of Covid-19 variants, leading to questions about the authorities’ ability to handle such a large number of people.
“Some of the details of the arrangements were not ideal, and I believe this had an impact on residents,” former secretary for food and health Dr Ko Wing-man said. “I hope the government can learn from this experience and do better.”
The experiences of handling the pandemic on mainland China and overseas had shown strict quarantine measures must be accompanied by other strong logistical measures to ensure necessary supplies reached the affected residents, Ko said.
When mainland authorities placed entire neighbourhoods and even cities under lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus, tens of thousands of volunteers and community workers were mobilised to deliver food and other supplies.
Respiratory medicine expert Dr Leung Chi-chiu said the government needed to be fully prepared for large-scale quarantine efforts, including making arrangements to transport people to facilities and ensuring they had what they needed and enough staff members to manage the situation. The government could consider sending people to quarantine in batches over two or three days rather than all in one go, giving authorities more time to prepare, he suggested.
The four latest cases involved three arrivals from Indonesia and one from India. None carried the N501Y mutation. It marked the third day in a row without a local infection and took the city’s overall tally to 11,811 cases, with 210 related deaths. Five preliminarypositive infections were also identified.
A woman who lived in the evacuated Block R of Allway Gardens in Tsuen Wan, where a domestic helper was discovered carrying the coronavirus variant last week, was among those complaining of disarray in the quarantine operation.
“Officers from the Department of Health failed to clarify how many people there were in my family despite cross-checking information with me four times,” the woman, who was identified as Renee, said on a radio show.
She said the process last Wednesday took from 1pm until 10.30pm, when she and her family members were finally asked to depart for the quarantine facility at Penny’s Bay on Lantau Island. But the facilities and food awaiting them were far from satisfactory, according to Renee.
“There were splinters in the bed boards that we needed to repair ourselves … The air conditioner was also too cold and I couldn’t sleep. Some residents also requested an extra blanket on the first day they entered the centre, but still hadn’t received one by the time they left,” she told Commercial Radio.
District councillor Chiu Yanloy told a different radio programme that more than 30 people suffered from diarrhoea after eating food supplied at the Penny’s Bay facility.
Chiu questioned whether the government was capable of handling such a large number of people simultaneously.
“The Penny’s Bay centre only reached half capacity in the past few days. Is the administration able to handle peak capacity at those quarantine centres?” Chiu asked.
The Department of Health on Sunday night said that more than 2,300 residents of buildings where variants were discovered had been allowed to leave quarantine centres under revised rules announced on Friday.
Chiu said a few households at the Tsuen Wan estate were still in quarantine yesterday morning.
But the department clarified that those households were close contacts of a confirmed case and would need to be quarantined in the government facility.
Separately, the government on Sunday night said nearly 340,000 of the city’s 370,000 domestic workers had met the Covid-19 testing deadline for the mandatory programme that began on May 1. About 40,000 helpers have also received two doses of Covid-19 vaccine, which could exempt them from the compulsory screening.
Is the administration able to handle peak capacity at those quarantine centres?
DISTRICT COUNCILLOR CHIU YAN-LOY