跳舞群組染冠毒，由最初發病日至今已3個星期了，這應該與政府在萬聖節前放寬防疫措施導致鬆懈有關，相信會出現起碼三代傳播。涉嫌爆發疫的跳舞場所有21間，他們的經營模式各有不同，至少4間是酒樓，包括新蒲崗越秀廣場新光宴會廳、沙田新光宴會廳、九龍灣星輝和美孚君好宴會廳.
有傳媒報道，在這些地方，客人舞照跳、牌照打。網上更流傳一段影片，君好宴會廳曾有很多無戴口罩食客大跳貼身舞。這些爆疫的酒樓夜總會，部分昨日仍照常營業。
至於其他非餐飲場所或會址的跳舞場地，多人聚集除口罩跳舞，是否違反限聚令、口罩令，又由哪個部門執法？食物及衞生局局長陳肇始女士在電台節目中竟沒有正面回應，只說要再研究條例。
筆者認為政府應盡快規管這些跳舞場所，並要求他們關閉一段時間，如酒樓的舞池，不應在第四波大爆發時仍讓他們營業，相信政府內部是可以決定用哪條條例規管他們的。 在疫情期間，人人受到影響約束，行動不便，當疫情下降時，大多數人就想鬆一鬆。在這種鬆懈的情況下，監管少了，他們也少了防範意識而中招。
另外，我們認為，私人跳舞場所及跳舞學校亦有表演及供應食物，也應如同派對房間，要受政府條例規管。任何用作跳舞用途的場所，舞池面積應有規定，亦要應登記冊記錄每名舞蹈導師、舞伴以及學生名單，包括姓名和地址等等，方便跟踪確診途徑以利抗疫。
陳志怡 注冊護士 資深護師
香港建設專業聯會理事
香港建設專業聯會
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
I would like to introduce STEPHEN S. ROACH's essay, he is a faculty member at Yale University and the former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia,as follows :
Just as China led the world in economic recovery in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, it is playing a similar role today. Its post-COVID rebound is gathering momentum amid a developed world that remains on shaky ground. Unfortunately, this is a bitter pill for many to swallow – especially in the United States, where demonization of China has reached epic proportions.
The two crises are, of course, different.... But in both cases, China’s crisis-response strategy was far more effective than that deployed by the US. In the five years following the onset of the 2008 crisis, annual real GDP growth in China averaged 8.6% (on a purchasing power parity basis)... , it was four times the US economy’s anemic 2.1% average annual growth over the post-crisis 2010-14 period.
China’s pandemic response hints at a comparable outcome in the years ahead. The GDP report for the third quarter of 2020 suggests a rapid return to the pre-COVID trend. The 4.9% year-on-year figure for real GDP growth does not convey a full sense of the self-sustaining recovery that is now emerging in China. Measuring economic growth on a sequential quarterly basis and converting those comparisons to annual rates – the preferred construct of US statisticians and policymakers – provides a much cleaner sense of real-time shifts in the underlying momentum of any economy. On that basis, China’s real GDP rose at an 11% sequential annual rate in the third quarter, following a 55% post-lockdown surge in the second quarter.
The comparison with the US is noteworthy. Both economies experienced comparable contractions during their respective lockdowns, which came one quarter later for the US. China’s 33.8% sequential (annualized) plunge in the first quarter was almost identical to the 31.2% US contraction in the second quarter...,the US at around 35% is a welcome and marked turnaround from the record decline during the lockdown, it is about 20 percentage points short of China’s post-lockdown rebound...
Post-lockdown rebounds are not the real story,..., The true test comes after the snapback, and that’s where China’s strategy has its greatest advantage.
China’s response to COVID-19 borrowed a page from its playbook in 2008, when it ring-fenced its financial markets from the toxic fallout of the subprime crisis....., containing and mitigating the spread of the disease, and then – and only then – make judicious use of monetary and fiscal policy to reinforce the post-lockdown snapback. This is very different from the approach taken in the US, where the post-lockdown debate is more about using monetary and fiscal policies as front-line instruments of economic liberation, rather than relying on disciplined public-health measures aimed at virus containment.
This underscores the sharp contrast between China’s COVID-first strategy and the America-first approach of US President Donald Trump’s administration. In China, unlike the US, there is no political and public resistance to masks, social distancing, and aggressive testing as requisite norms of the COVID-19 era. Meanwhile, the US is in the midst of its third serious wave of infection while China continues to exercise prompt and effective control over new outbreaks.....
unemployment insurance claims remained above 800,000 on a four-week moving average through mid-October, and the 7.9% national unemployment rate in September was still more than double its pre-pandemic 3.5% level – leaves America’s consumer-led economy highly vulnerable to a setback. The confluence of a new COVID-19 wave with the on-again, off-again political debate over another fiscal relief package has effectively neutralized the animal spirits that have long powered economic recovery in the US.
... For those unwilling to focus on containment, like the US, the long shadow of COVID-19 speaks volumes to the ever-present perils of a double-dip recession. That is exactly what has happened in the aftermath of eight of the last 11 US recessions. The contrast with China’s self-sustaining recovery couldn’t be more striking.
What the professor stated is frank and valid. Life is sometimes compared to a doyage. Life, if exists, of a country, may do the same.
S. L. Lee Engineer
HKFDP
