Some further insights I've recognised from the flow-charts above, compiled daily by Gigi Choy over the last two weeks and showing the emerging and growing clusters up until yesterday (sadly now discontinued but follow @tripperhead for daily data updates).
Notice the disparities between the "Dance Group cluster" and the "Silka Seaview cluster"?
What do we know?
And what may we surmise, dear Watson?
The Dance cluster emerged from a "middle class" Index case. Omicron.
Cathay Pacific, 28 year old, female, passenger-flight Cabin Crew (Stewardess), arrived on a Cathay cargo flight to bring her home for three days home quarantine before off again on a passenger flight. Living with her parents in a flat in a private housing estate. Mother spreads it around a few fancy restaurants and goes dancing and it spreads, through various contacts - and all of their domestic helpers - across churches, a smallish indoor pop concert, to a domestic helper cluster, then through to an office of finance peeps at Citic Pacific Securities and on to a private party for 230 people at a restaurant thrown by a senior govt. official with many other officials and legislators in attendance!
All relatively easy to get on top of and contain - with meticulous, hands on, 24/7, contact tracing. Maybe!
Almost certainly local Hong Kong, ethnically Chinese, middle class++ outbreak.
Fewer than 60 cases confirmed to date.
Some leeway given to, exemptions made for and special consideration of - how to say - the more "important" among all the people involved.
Probably, though far from certainly, containable.
Compare and contrast to/with the Silka Seaview cluster.
A 43 year old, female, "working class" Hongkonger. Certainly of Pakistani descent. Returned from a trip to Pakistan and, after 21 days locked in a, cheap-ish, quarantine hotel room (Silka Seaview - @ GBP 70 per night,) at her own expense - where she caught Omicron on her 20th day of stay - went home to her, minuscule-sized, public housing flat in an estate in Sham Shui Po. There, she infected her husband and four children. It was spread to schools, other places and beyond.
Her 46 year old husband (almost certainly born in Hong Kong and Cantonese speaking - but not reading or writing,) went off "dumpster diving" in the not-so-far-away, and massive, Kwai Chung public housing estate. That's normal. Many people do this. Chinese New Year is coming. People (that can afford to,) throw away stuff and buy new before CNY every year.
I've been dumpster diving in the large skips placed in my village at CNY, every year, for the last 15 years now - eighty percent (80%) of my current furniture and clothing in use derives from dumpster-diving!
Anyway ... A cleaner on the Kwai Chung Estate picked up Omicron from one of the various refuse stations he'd been rummaging through - each of them situated underneath a 50-storey housing block with 3,000 residents.
The cleaner spread it around and it EXPLODED, exponentially throughout a poor, ethnically diverse, public housing estate (and beyond).
35,000 peeps in public housing, currently locked indoors under huge control.
And the poorer people are going to suffer further. Lost income. Lost jobs. Lockdowns. And more. Small businesses will be further decimated.
And the worst is yet to come, especially for the 50%+ of "working class" and the elderly, the vulnerable, the poor, the 25% living under the poverty line, including the 20% in relative deprivation and the 10% living in sub-divided, privately-rented, squalor.
Compare and contrast.
And how the fuck does anyone in "power" here contain that?
Hang the fucking rich!
Oh!
And, as an aside, the 43 year old woman gave birth to her four children in Hong Kong - the first when she was 19 years old - the oldest is now 24.
She was likely brought to Hong Kong from Pakistan at 17 years old for an arranged marriage to a locally-born HongKonger of Pakistani descent.
But this is just yet-another-issue that's been long been ignored and is now just-another-problem left behind in the last of those - oh so British - ex colonies.
And that's for another time!
The dichotomies are stark and telling and, I'm sure, relevant to the majority of global outbreaks.
What the fuck has humanity come to in this era of money-driven deception?
Wake up peeps.
Stay safe.
Woof
Notice the disparities between the "Dance Group cluster" and the "Silka Seaview cluster"?
What do we know?
And what may we surmise, dear Watson?
The Dance cluster emerged from a "middle class" Index case. Omicron.
Cathay Pacific, 28 year old, female, passenger-flight Cabin Crew (Stewardess), arrived on a Cathay cargo flight to bring her home for three days home quarantine before off again on a passenger flight. Living with her parents in a flat in a private housing estate. Mother spreads it around a few fancy restaurants and goes dancing and it spreads, through various contacts - and all of their domestic helpers - across churches, a smallish indoor pop concert, to a domestic helper cluster, then through to an office of finance peeps at Citic Pacific Securities and on to a private party for 230 people at a restaurant thrown by a senior govt. official with many other officials and legislators in attendance!
All relatively easy to get on top of and contain - with meticulous, hands on, 24/7, contact tracing. Maybe!
Almost certainly local Hong Kong, ethnically Chinese, middle class++ outbreak.
Fewer than 60 cases confirmed to date.
Some leeway given to, exemptions made for and special consideration of - how to say - the more "important" among all the people involved.
Probably, though far from certainly, containable.
Compare and contrast to/with the Silka Seaview cluster.
A 43 year old, female, "working class" Hongkonger. Certainly of Pakistani descent. Returned from a trip to Pakistan and, after 21 days locked in a, cheap-ish, quarantine hotel room (Silka Seaview - @ GBP 70 per night,) at her own expense - where she caught Omicron on her 20th day of stay - went home to her, minuscule-sized, public housing flat in an estate in Sham Shui Po. There, she infected her husband and four children. It was spread to schools, other places and beyond.
Her 46 year old husband (almost certainly born in Hong Kong and Cantonese speaking - but not reading or writing,) went off "dumpster diving" in the not-so-far-away, and massive, Kwai Chung public housing estate. That's normal. Many people do this. Chinese New Year is coming. People (that can afford to,) throw away stuff and buy new before CNY every year.
I've been dumpster diving in the large skips placed in my village at CNY, every year, for the last 15 years now - eighty percent (80%) of my current furniture and clothing in use derives from dumpster-diving!
Anyway ... A cleaner on the Kwai Chung Estate picked up Omicron from one of the various refuse stations he'd been rummaging through - each of them situated underneath a 50-storey housing block with 3,000 residents.
The cleaner spread it around and it EXPLODED, exponentially throughout a poor, ethnically diverse, public housing estate (and beyond).
35,000 peeps in public housing, currently locked indoors under huge control.
And the poorer people are going to suffer further. Lost income. Lost jobs. Lockdowns. And more. Small businesses will be further decimated.
And the worst is yet to come, especially for the 50%+ of "working class" and the elderly, the vulnerable, the poor, the 25% living under the poverty line, including the 20% in relative deprivation and the 10% living in sub-divided, privately-rented, squalor.
Compare and contrast.
And how the fuck does anyone in "power" here contain that?
Hang the fucking rich!
Oh!
And, as an aside, the 43 year old woman gave birth to her four children in Hong Kong - the first when she was 19 years old - the oldest is now 24.
She was likely brought to Hong Kong from Pakistan at 17 years old for an arranged marriage to a locally-born HongKonger of Pakistani descent.
But this is just yet-another-issue that's been long been ignored and is now just-another-problem left behind in the last of those - oh so British - ex colonies.
And that's for another time!
The dichotomies are stark and telling and, I'm sure, relevant to the majority of global outbreaks.
What the fuck has humanity come to in this era of money-driven deception?
Wake up peeps.
Stay safe.
Woof