'Battlefield mode': HK hospitals buckle under Omicron wave

HONG KONG • Huddled under blankets and thermal shields, dozens of elderly patients shivered on gurneys outside a hospital serving one of Hong Kong's poorest communities - a grim tableau for the city as its health system buckles under an Omicron-fuelled Covid-19 wave.

"We call this the fever zone," a nurse in full-body protective gear said, declining to be named. "Don't get too close."

Hong Kong is in the throes of its worst coronavirus outbreak, and record daily infections have pushed hospitals to breaking point. On Monday, Caritas Medical Centre in Sham Shui Po district started setting up isolation tents outside its facilities, initially limiting one Covid-19 patient per tent.

But by nightfall on Wednesday, entire families were crammed into the tents, while about 50 others languished in the February chill on hospital beds wheeled outside.

"Some of my colleagues say we are now in battlefield mode," said Mr David Chan, an emergency room nurse at Caritas. He is also the acting president of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority Employees Alliance.

"We are worried that the patients' conditions will worsen later this week," he said, calling the situation "very undesirable".

Like mainland China, Hong Kong has adhered to a zero-Covid strategy which has largely kept the virus out but left the business hub cut off from the world.

Until the most recent outbreak, all patients were treated in dedicated Covid-19 isolation wards, and close contacts were sent to a quarantine camp.

But the extremely contagious Omicron variant of the virus has left the authorities scrambling and exposed shortcomings in plans to deal with a major outbreak.

The daily caseload hit a record 6,116 yesterday, up from 4,285 a day before, with a further 6,300 preliminary positives in the densely packed city of 7.5 million.

Before the latest wave, Hong Kong had recorded just over 12,000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Health experts say the daily case numbers could rise to 28,000 by next month.

Especially vulnerable are Hong Kong's vaccine-hesitant elderly. Despite ample vaccine supplies, only 43 per cent of those aged 70 to 79 and 26 per cent of over-80s opted to get jabbed.

Last week, the government said people with mild cases could isolate at home, but by Wednesday, there were still 12,000 people waiting to be hospitalised.

At Caritas, the wave of patients has left staff "exhausted, stressed out and helpless", Mr Chan said.

"It's so painful that we have been working non-stop but we still cannot take care of every patient properly," he said, adding that the current crisis outpaced what they faced at the beginning of the pandemic.

"Back then, we did not know the virus well and we were short of equipment," he said.

"Two years on, we expected the Hospital Authority to have better plans - but there turned out to be none."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE