(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Overview: Hong Kong has gone through two years of fighting the epidemic
China News Agency, Hong Kong, January 24 (Reporter Han Xingtong) As we enter the second anniversary of the fight against the epidemic, Hong Kong is struggling to resist the double attack of the mutant virus strains Delta and Omicron.
The suspicion of hamster transmission in the pet shop remains unsolved, and the number of groups in Kwai Chung Village continues to grow.
However, it is not difficult to find that in the face of the virus, Hong Kong is no longer passive and panicked two years ago, but has responded calmly.
Xu Shuchang, an expert adviser to the Hong Kong SAR government and a chair professor of respiratory system at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, sighed in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency earlier. He still remembered that in the early days of the outbreak two years ago, he met Zhong Nanshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in Guangdong. The epidemic was quite worrying, but at that time, it was unexpected that the epidemic had lasted for two years and was still not over.
On January 25, 2020, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government raised the response level of the novel coronavirus to the highest "emergency", and the anti-epidemic clarion call was officially sounded.
With the lessons learned from the "SARS" epidemic in 2003, the SAR government's anti-epidemic work has always been "strictly guarded".
With the rapid spread of the epidemic around the world, a large number of Hong Kong residents and international students living in the United Kingdom and the United States "returned", and the number of imported cases increased sharply for a while, triggering the second wave of the epidemic in March of the same year.
The SAR government began to tighten the entry policy, and at the same time "intensified" and "internal defense rebound", and introduced a "gathering restriction order" through amendments.
These measures were implemented in a relaxed manner in the subsequent waves of epidemics, and achieved obvious results.
In July of the same year, the epidemic changed rapidly again. The third wave of the epidemic broke out, and the first cluster infection in the nursing home occurred, resulting in a surge in deaths.
In addition to tightening social distancing measures again, the SAR government has also targeted to plug the loophole of "foreign import prevention".
It is worth mentioning that at a time when the epidemic is spreading rapidly, the National Health Commission dispatched the "Mainland Nucleic Acid Testing Support Team" and "Mainland Cabin Hospital Support Team" to Hong Kong to help Hong Kong fight the epidemic. Hong Kong officially launched on September 1, 2020. Expand the Universal Community Testing Program.
According to figures from the Information Service of the SAR Government, a total of about 1,783,000 samples were tested for the nucleic acid of the new coronavirus during the 14-day plan. After re-examination by the Department of Health of the SAR Government, 32 of them were confirmed cases.
In mid-November of the same year, the singing and dancing group caused the fourth wave of the epidemic.
On January 23 last year, the SAR government took the first raid-style "closed area" force test.
The Hong Kong Infection Control Center on North Lantau Island, a "Hong Kong version of Fangcang shelter hospital" aided by the central government, was also officially opened on February 26 last year, which greatly relieved the pressure on public medical facilities.
在那之后，香港迎来疫情受控的新阶段，连续数个月保持本地“清零”，这一良好局势下，特区政府多次与内地就“通关”事宜展开商讨。始料未及的是，病毒再次流入香港，引发新一波疫情。
但用许树昌的话说，在经历前后四波疫情后，香港由最初面对病毒不知所措，开始找到一些方法、措施。
最直观的表现是，由流入本地的病例引起社区暴发的时间间隔越来越长，不论是国泰航空机师群组，还是维园跳舞群组，乃至现时的宠物店群组、葵涌邨群组，暴发都限于局部地区，尚未出现以往一触即发、源头不明病例涌现的局面，这反映香港特区政府和民众已掌握了足够的经验与病毒展开拉锯。
特区政府的决策亦越来越果断迅速，且具针对性，当怀疑仓鼠传人的情况出现后，即时关闭售卖仓鼠的宠物店并暂停进口；当葵涌邨不断出现阳性病例，将涉事大厦“围封”强检5天。
也正因如此，尽管疫情不容乐观，港人做好个人防护之余，并不见慌张，他们相信疫情可在卓有成效的措施下受控，也仍盼望着不久后可度过一个平安团圆的春节。(完)