In ‘zero-Covid’ Hong Kong, this is what happens when you test positive

“I think the worst part is not knowing when I’ll be able to get out,” he said. “You’re almost feeling you are back at school, with controlled wake-up and bedtime, (and) not being able to control what you can eat.”Hong Kong, along with mainland China, is one of the few places in the world still pursuing a In recent days, Hong Kong has identified a number of Omicron cases in a cluster linked to aircrew — breaking a nearly three-month streak of no locally transmitted Covid infections. Those confirmed infected have also been sent to the hospital.Meanwhile, hundreds of people including more than 20 restaurant staff deemed close contacts of the positive cases have been sent to the government camp for 21 days of isolation and extensive testing. Any positive results would mean a transfer to hospital.Anyone who attended the same premises as the positive cases at roughly the same time in recent days has also been ordered to take a test, while several residential buildings linked to the cluster have been temporarily locked down for mass testing.As fears of local Omicron transmission grow, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Tuesday that resumption of normal travel between the city and mainland China will “have to wait for another while.”Just before the cluster emerged, Lam reaffirmed Hong Kong’s zero-Covid stance.”Hong Kong has been taking very stringent measures to guard against importation of cases with a view to maintaining zero local infection,” she said in a December 28 statement. “In the face of the fierce onslaught of Omicron, we need to be even more vigilant.”Rather than seeing quarantine as a punishment, she said, people going through the experience may also view it as an act of altruism. “You’re doing something good for the society,” she added.But as his indefinite isolation period grows longer, Chan said he is worried about his mental health. “I’m trying to rationalize it, I think just going through the processes knowing that there are certain things you can and can’t change … the only thing that I can change is how I approach it and what I do with my time,” he said.”The best part of it, I guess, is being able to see things in a different perspective,” he added. “(I am) trying to turn it into something useful, something interesting to hopefully one day look back on and remember that time when I sat in a hospital room for X number of days.”