Posted on 01/30/2020 1:00:34 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Long lines form at pharmacies and crowds of panic-buyers strip supermarket shelves in Hong Kong as fears spread through the crowded territory over China’s new coronavirus epidemic.
As a territory that lost nearly 300 people to the SARS virus in 2003, Hong Kongers are taking few chances over the latest disease outbreak that began in central China and has since spread.
Usually clogged streets have been uncharacteristically quiet, with light traffic and crowds over the Lunar New Year holiday.
However, the one place Hong Kongers are still willing to gather in sizeable numbers is outside their local pharmacies, hoping to snap up rapidly diminishing supplies of surgical face masks.
In the middle-class district of Tseung Kwan O, hundreds of people yesterday patiently lined up for hours to buy masks at a pharmacy that, like many outlets, was now limiting sales to one box per person.
“No matter how long this queue takes and how much it costs, I will at least buy enough for myself,” a 26-year-old woman, who gave her surname as Tam, said.
Like many in the line, she was angry at local authorities.
“I’m not satisfied with what the government is doing to prevent the epidemic. It doesn’t close the border to mainlanders, and there is a lack of the supplies for masks in the market,” she added.
Hong Kong has resisted public pressure to close its border with the Chinese mainland, although it has shuttered some crossings.
A 17-year-old student, who gave her first name Michelle, said she had waited for more than an hour to get a box of masks.
“I hope this will be enough for a month. If I don’t have enough masks, I might need to stay at home and can’t go to school,” she said.
The South China Morning Post reported that some people camped out overnight after Watsons, one of the territory’s largest pharmacy chains, said a limited supply of face masks would be sold yesterday.
Angry customers argued with staff outside some stores when supplies ran out, the paper reported.
Supermarkets have also seen their shelves cleared in some districts. “I bought a bag of rice and some canned food, too,” a 60-year-old retiree surnamed Sin said. “I am trying to avoid gathering with friends and reduce the amount of time to dine in at restaurants.”
Hong Kong’s government said it was “striving to procure more surgical masks to cope with the epidemic,” adding it had contacted 140 suppliers in 10 countries.
It added that the “supply of surgical masks in the market would still be tight in the near future.”
The territory’s Customs Department said it had also launched an operation to weed out counterfeit masks that did not comply with international safety standards.
Hong Kong suspects the current infection in China is at 7,000 and there are 48,000 people being monitored who are known to have been in close contact with those infected. And if it’s contagious in the 2 week incubation period... how many more are infected from those 48,000?
We’ll see what the next couple months bring.
You can be in a long line that moves fast or in a short line that moves slow.
How long before the next pandemic? Who knows.
Remember the lines of a decade or so ago when they ran out of flu vaccines in some U.S. cities? People were risking getting the flu by going out in such crowds. They would have lowered their risk simply by staying home and eating chicken soup.
A place to catch something!
Just tell em it’s not as bad as the Spanish Flu. That seems to be the dumb answer around here.
I’m waiting for the ‘raw sewage from the toilets at Chernobyl’ soup.
Uh, oh.
Customers are noticing empty shelves at Whole Foods and they aren’t very happy
At least the radiation in Chernobyl sewage water would kill whatever bugs infest things like bat soup and live mice entrees.
You SOUP NAZI! /s
Poor creature! They eat the bad stuff...bugs and such,
They forgot about protecting their eyes, hands, heads, necks and their clothing. Sorry, but it’s either a hazmat suit with some place to hose it down or it’s nothing. Just a mask by itself isn’t going to do much.
Yesterday or the day before, the Austin, TX CBS news found zero masks on stores shelves.
While they’re waiting in line, they’re likely to catch it.
Mr. Sin is limiting time with friends and eating out. Hey, Sin, think how many germy hands have handled your food and dishes, the table cloth, the chair, the menu, the front door, the restroom, the bowl of fortune cookies - ok, that’s an American thing but you get the point. It only takes one sneezed on arugula leaf...
Did anyone watch Shark Tank (show gets on ick, Mark Cuban gets two) last night? Some guy was trying to sell them on bat houses and had a bat flying around. Talk about poor timing.
Never be a food-prepper.
Because that could get you on the nut-job conspiracy ping list!
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