Covid Quarantine Confinement Camps
 

I have not seen this on any other PPRune listing so I shall start a thread. As it may be slightly critical of the Hong Kong Government the thread or I may be whisked away at short notice, but I think it is important to get this out there.

I was alerted to the situation at Pennys Bay Confinement Camp by a colleague of a friend who was caught up in the Tung Chung removals of around 400 residents from an apartment block after a worker there was allegedly found to be Covid positive. His situation is appalling and as he points out to my friend, worse than the situation in the average Hong Kong jail. (He knows as he has visited prisons as part of his previous job.) I searched for more information online and apart from finding a Ficebook group which supports incarcerated Covid alleged contacts also found an article by Stephen Vines, with whom most of us are familiar.

It is under https://hongkongfp.com/2021/02/27/st...te-so-hellish/ or go to Hong Kong Free Press and access it from there.

The film Brazil has arrived in real life. A resident of Hong Kong now has no recourse to irrational and irresponsible decisions taken by junior bureaucrats. There is no access to legal representation as you are not convicted of a crime, and Habeas Corpus has been removed from the new Security Ordinance which applies to the pandemic. You are held in a cell with food provided three times a day that would not be acceptable by the authorities in a prison. To get food or amenities delivered to you requires such a complexity of impractical rules and regulations (eg you must provide a photo of all the items, which must look the same as the package that arrives, delivered with a photograph of the registration plate of the vehicle, at three windows of time during the day, blah blah blah....) that few delivery companies will bother with the hassle.

All this for the crime of living in the same block as someone who has tested positive for a notifiable disease. What are the chances of meeting up with that person, in a transmissable situation for more that 2 minutes? WHO and CDC work on the premise that it takes a minimum of 15 minutes of exposure to a Covid infected person to ensure infection. Ah, but the non-medical bureaucrats of Hong Kong know better, we shall incarcerate you with prejudice. And don't even go to what happens if you have kids and one of you is positive. Your kids will be "looked after by appropriate staff" while you are carted off to hospital.

In my life in Hong Kong I once stayed in a building that had at my estimate a good 20% of the residents having TB. Nobody cared. We got on with life. We are still here.

For the first time in my life I have become fearful of Hong Kong. Where a bureaucrat, not even from the Health Department, can send me to a detention camp for no better reason than "Can", I feel it is time to get out. The territory has gone from one of the free world's examples of how to run a liberal society to a place where people can disappear, where I do not know if next week I shall be able to move my money or my family out, if I shall be in a detention camp or a very basic state hospital. I consider myself lucky that I have a passport that can still travel. I am sorry if your mileage may vary...

Many crew have seen Penny's Bay after the gym outbreak. The CC tower is not 400 people, it is 416 apartments with over 1000 in quarantine yet every single one had tested negative (at this stage). Now they are welcoming more people to come stay at Disneyland's prison for short stays of 3-4 days from the church/market etc. It is a true hell hole there.

1984 anyone?

If it is as bad as you paint it to be, and if its a matter of freedom versus tyranny , then why don’t you go to your country’s embassy and seek repatriation due to fear of imprisonment by a hostile state?

CX had in the past “looked after” its employees when they were under a threat of harm. Tell someone apart from Ppruners if your family is in danger.

Otherwise, nice try at spreading fear.

Anxiao is completely correct, and people should be afraid. This is freedom crushed under a bureaucrat's boot. There is no science behind this, not even a hint of science. The ignorance is astonishing, even more astonishing is that the population is readily accepting this. Beijing must be overjoyed. Hong Kong is one of the worst examples, but they aren't the only population that has laid down for draconian COVID measures. Australia comes to mind as well, with the confiscation of the computers of those who organized protests against lockdowns, and people put on police watch lists for daily checks. Let the businesses close for good, the bureaucrats will still have their jobs.

Given that 95% of Hong Kongers have refused the China-jab, the message that the government is sending is perfectly clear. 'Take your medicine or face the music'. It's as simple as that.

The problem is there are no exceptions even if you have been fully vaccinated. You still get your three week holiday in Penny Bay.
So what’s the incentive?

Dictatorships don't offer incentives.

I can confirm that as someone fully vaccinated (2 x BioNTech shots more than 2 weeks ago) and having had no close contact with the infected or her employer family, or any contact, or indeed any contact with any family in the affected Caribbean Coast tower, I am in quarantine in this modern day concentration camp sleeping on a barely padded plank. We all arrived healthy. I doubt all will leave in the same condition particularly the elderly

I am sorry to hear of your plight Spud, it must be awful. I hope you have got someone on the outside to help.

I have asked one of the contributors to the farcebook thread to send me the name of it, as I am not a subscriber. It seems to give good tips and advice, and commiserations from others which can help at times like this.

There are few countries in the world that could get away with this without civil disobedience, but the mainland advisors have timed it well after the imprisonment of the street protestors and the opposition.

I am sure CX People department will be falling over themselves to assist any staff caught up in this. The sad thing is, 15 years ago, that would not have been a sarcastic comment.

Got it, the HK Quarantine Support Group on facebook

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...es-easy-target

at least one HK journalist has the strength to call this out, albeit in support of the 370,000 domestic helpers, suffering rank racism or what Sophia Chan prefers to call “prudent measures”. He particularly nails it when asking what would have happened if it had been 2 doctors or lawyers rather than foreign domestic helpers who had tested positive in TC.

extract From the article
. “But the same concerns apply to anyone arriving from such places. If two bankers or lawyers had tested positive for variants would the government subject those professions to the same measures?

Agree with the institutionalised racism inherent in the HKGGOV, even down to one nationality not being allowed to hold a drivers licence... We can guess which one.

Two of my maid's friends who wanted to get vaccinated have been told by their owners sorry employers that they are prohibited from doing so, on pain of dismissal, as it may make the children they look after sick. Not a lot of STEM education in the Hong Kong system then.

"Let them hate, as long as they fear" seems to be the ruling philosophy of the government. Now ordinary people are stressed that it just takes one person in your block to be tested positive, then a knock on the door and you are incarcerated in an insanitary refugee camp environment for three weeks minimum. It certainly stresses me. Especially as there is a retired gweilo as***e in our block who hasn't worn a mask for a year, and drinks with his 8-10 similar rowdy buddies every night outside low bars. If/when he tests positive I'll be ropeable if we all end up in Pennys Bay.

The lawyer group from Mid Levels who were taken away in the night and sued the Government have gone quiet, not sure if that is because their case has gone sub judice or because they won and have to keep it secret as a condition of release.

Not just Hong Kong. The following article is about a posh private school near Miami.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.n...ccine.amp.html

anxiao

two of your ‘maids friends’ are lying. Grow up.

Hong Kong has completely :mad: mental.

There is now excuse for this sort of behaviour and loss of human rights. It's barbaric.

It's time to get out.

Last one, the lights?

Dingleberry Handpump

Nope

its a thing
the dh I see who lives on my floor was told the same but got the vax anyway.
and her mates ...
you know very well how controlling some HK employers are

totally unsurprised

Yep, I can believe the anti-vax controlling behavior. Total bolleaux though about not being able to hold a driving licence.

I think people are just trying to point out the difficulty of some countries citizens to get a licence. But this isn't just the Philippines or Indonesia. There are many countries who need to do the full licence from scratch. Wait times for it can be years.

Also I think the government has back-pedalled on the vaccine requirement now.

Here’s another quarantine story.

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/secti...wbDjSSKvfPHCdw

Norhong Kongrea. Free missile rides and petty zoo with rabid dogs and hungry hogs.

Back to the quarantine camp theme. Anyone who feels strongly about the insanity and cruel injustice of it all, here’s a link to one of several petitions that are gathering pace:

http://chng.it/CyGnrdQg

Signed and contributed.

A Mental Health practitioner who works with OT&P doctors in Hong Kong has written an excellent article on the OT&P blog. She was a Registered Psychiatrist in UK but her degree is not recognised in HK so she works as a counsellor here. She is in week three in Penny's Bay having been caught up as a contact. She sees it from the professional side of the effects of isolation and various mitigations, but also from the personal side of the effects on her as an individual.

I will try to contact the doctor's practice to get permission to forward it to Prune -

I am horrified to learn of these conditions and fear that the U.S. is not too far behind. Please stay strong and never give up hope.

cavuman1

Don’t be so ridiculous.

Cavu, I think you got a bite there from our resident BJS troll...

The USA does not have a very good record on internment camps, as many Americans of Japanese descent discovered. Read your WWII history.

SCMP today suggests that the length of stay in the camps will be reduced for fully vaccinated persons to be announced Friday pm by the government. First moderately good news for awhile.

The very good article by Gira Patel

Check out https://www.otandp.com/blog/survivin...nal-experience

anxiao

What a silly statement on internment camps. That was 80 years ago during a world war, apologies and reparations have been made, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would defend the action. Using that as any sort of basis to think the US would be likely to have quarantine internment camps is ludicrous. Even under the present progressive administration its a far stretch. It's never been suggested, there has never even been a hint of it, and many of our states are now wide open. It wouldn't be tolerated here.

8, your point taken, my reference as a comparison was unnecessary.

Back to the thread, the civil disobedience in Pok Fu Lam and the petitions have worked, the detentions are being reduced.

I noted that some journalists have started asking questions about the construction of Penny's bay, who was involved in the work, why it was pushed through, and the construction company that got the contract.

I am generally in full agreement with your comments. The racial attitudes in HK belong to another age. But it can't be Filipinos you are referring to, since a great many of the school runs are being done by drivers from the Philippines. As are the ubiquitous double parkers at the Landmark.

I see the Health Secretary has learned absolutely nothing, instead of acknowledging they got it wrong and sensibly backtracked on some of their ridiculous quarantine rules, she dishes out more threats today of full force of the law being used on recalcitrant quarantinees. (?).

Tyranny, always done for your benefit. Glad to see folks are starting to ask questions.

A rather pathetic attempt at damage control by the government muppets:

Carrie Lam apologises for mass quarantine fiasco
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/compone...0-20210511.htm

She’s a witch!
Worst part is that she claims to be a devout catholic. Me thinks there’s a very special little place in HELL reserved for her, eternal quarantine if you like :}

Sorry to hear you lost your wife, covid has had a terrible impact on relationships for many.

Oli777

Sorry to hear about your demise , it's another unheard , unaccounted human tragedy that doesn't fit in government stats. While in the West authorities have tried to accommodate the needs of families that require one of it's members to travel in order to support it , in Asia it's completely different, no one cares if a family is separated for months or years , no one cares if a family loses it's only income due to travel restrictions. It's a dog's world , human misery dictated by government officials that care for no one but themselves. The phycological effects on children will be felt for decades to come.

Some wives now showing their true colours ?
 

THYTHY

Should be thought of as a liberation not a demise. Better to be alone than with a bad woman.