People lie in clinic beds waiting for medical therapy at a short term shelter exterior the Caritas Healthcare Heart in Hong Kong, China, on February 16, 2022.
Leung Man Hei | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Hong Kong needs to secure its health-treatment technique, which is less than incredible strain appropriate now because of to a spike in coronavirus conditions, a wellbeing specialist instructed CNBC on Friday.
Hong Kong is into its fifth wave, driven by the a lot more transmissible omicron pressure. Cases have surged sharply, from just more than 100 new instances for each day at the start of February, to a document of 6,166 new circumstances on Thursday.
“In essence, in Hong Kong correct now, what we need to do is to secure the integrity of the health technique,” claimed Gabriel Leung, dean of medicine at the College of Hong Kong. “The overall health system in Hong Kong at this time is underneath huge tension.”
Authorities have blamed the surge on the “extraordinary transmission speed” of the omicron variant, and reported that the “tsunami” of information situations has “far exceeded” the city’s capability for remedy, tracing, testing and isolation.
Hospitals are facing “immense tension,” the federal government claimed this week. The occupancy price at community hospitals was at 92% as of Feb. 18, facts from Hong Kong’s Healthcare facility Authority showed.
According to media reports, there have been scenes of sufferers huddled on beds still left in the open up outside the hospitals, as facilities became confused.
Leung told CNBC’s “Avenue Signals Asia” that the town requires to sluggish down the pace of the current surge.
“The only way you can sluggish it down now is seriously to go and decrease even further the people today from mixing with every other and from shifting about in the city,” he claimed.
“So whether or not you call that a lockdown, or regardless of whether you simply call that enhanced or stepped up general public wellness and social steps, I you should not definitely intellect — the jargon is not the important thing.”
Healthcare staff sporting own protecting devices (PPE) show up at to a patient exhibiting Covid indicators at a momentary triage region upcoming to the emergency department at the Caritas Professional medical Heart medical center in Hong Kong, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.
Bertha Wang | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
“What we want to do desperately is to make certain that we shield the integrity of the medical center technique, this kind of that we prevent people today from additional deteriorating if they truly have to have aid in the hospitals,” he ongoing.
Hong Kong Main Executive Carrie Lam stated Tuesday there ended up no ideas for a citywide lockdown.
“The speedy response of the Hong Kong SAR Government … is to increase the capacities at many pieces of this anti-epidemic energy, and we are undertaking this,” she reported.
“I would have to say it pretty evidently that we have no programs for any widespread town lockdown as you have seen in some of the other spots,” she advised reporters.
