Hong Kong storing bodies in shipping containers amid Omicron surge: photos

New York Post ^ | March 17th, 2022 | Joshua Rhett Miller

[shadowlands1960]

The bodies of coronavirus victims in Hong Kong are being stored in refrigerated shipping containers as a deadly Omicron surge pushes morgues past capacity, harrowing photos show.

Photos obtained Wednesday by AFP show workers in full personal protective equipment putting corpses into a refrigerated container at a mortuary in Hong Kong, where more than 4,600 deaths and nearly 1 million infections have been tallied in the past three months.

The rising death toll has pushed local morgues to the brink and exhausted Hong Kong’s supply of coffins. Just 300 remain and those are expected to be depleted by this weekend, AFP reported.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Wednesday two more shipments of coffins were expected to arrive from mainland China by sea.

Authorities have been trying to help families retrieve bodies of loved ones without having a death certificate issued by a physician, Lam said.

[Steve_Seattle]

There have recently been huge outbreaks in South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and New Zealand. In South Korea, cases went from a peak of 1,050 a day pre-vaccine to over 400,000 a day recently. New Zealand went from fewer than ten cases a day to over 20,000 a day. I'm not sure about Vietnam and New Zealand, but South Korea and Singapore are highly-vaccinated countries.

Although deaths have also risen lately, they are still small in raw numbers - about 150 a day in South Korea compared to the low 20s at the height of the pre-vaccine period. Still, that's about a 700% increase.

[know.your.why]

It’s my understanding that a disproportionate number of historically deadly viruses have originated in China. Why is that?

[Steve_Seattle]

Update on South Korea: Today they recorded 621,000 new cases, a jump of more than 200,000 in two days. Deaths more than doubled, from around 160 a day to 420. Hong Kong has gone from zero deaths a day for most of late 2021 to about 280 a day. Hong Kong cases went from less than 100 a day to 62,000 a day.

[dirtymac]

God! Please not this bull sh*t again.

[shadowlands1960]

Chinese peasants live close to their animals. They use pig excrement to create their heating/cooking gas.. often in pens close to their homes. They also rely heavily on chickens and other fowl. All this mixed in together creates the stew out of which our yearly flu epidemics come.

[nutmeg]

"deadly Omicron"???

Hubby and I had it in early January. It was literally like a bad cold.

[mewzilla]

Tell that to News Corp. :-)

[metmom]

Fool me once…..