Death Cases Due To COVID-19 In Hong Kong Soared, Mortuaries Overwhelmed To Accommodate Bodies

Patients lie in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emergency treatment area, outside a hospital in Hong Kong, China, Sunday (27/2/2022). (Photo: ANTARA FOTO/REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/rwa/sad)

JAKARTA - Facilities for storing bodies in hospitals and public morgues in Hong Kong are struggling to keep up with record numbers of infections and deaths from COVID-19.

These conditions prompted the authorities to try harder to control the increasingly severe outbreak.

Dozens of bodies await in hospital accident and emergency rooms across the global financial hub for transport to morgues, said Hong Kong General Practitioners Association head Tony Ling.

"These bodies now need additional time to wait for collection because resources are very limited," he said as reported by Antara.

The limitation is due to the lack of storage capacity and manpower.

The government and hospital authorities have not yet responded to this.

There have been more than 600 COVID-19-related deaths in Hong Kong since the pandemic began in 2020, fewer than in any other major city of its kind.

However, those numbers continue to increase every day with a record 83 deaths as of Sunday (27/2). About 300 deaths have been recorded in the last week with most of the population unvaccinated.

Most of the elderly in Hong Kong have not been vaccinated although vaccination has recently increased. Many are hesitant to get an injection out of fear of side effects and complacency over the city's success in controlling COVID-19 in 2021.

Health experts said the city of 7.4 million people could expect cumulative deaths to potentially rise to around 3,206 deaths from COVID-19 by mid-May.

An average of 4,000 people die each month in Hong Kong, according to government data in 2020.

Hong Kong has stuck to its COVID-19 dynamic zero policy which seeks to curb all outbreaks, just like in mainland China.

To achieve this, the former British colony has taken some of the toughest measures since the start of the pandemic and some of the toughest regulations in the world.

The city has recorded more than 171,000 total infections with around 160,000 of them since early February due to the highly contagious variant of Omicron.

The government had told the public at a press conference a few days ago that the deaths mostly occurred in people who had not been vaccinated. Previously, the information was not easy to convey.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said experts in mainland China had advised her government that they explain "more clearly the clinical situation regarding the death toll to the public and boost vaccination for the elderly," according to a government statement published late Sunday (27/2).

Chinese officials have begun to strengthen Hong Kong's efforts to fight the outbreak. President Xi Jinping told the city government to make it their primary mission to control the worsening COVID-19 outbreak.