Social spacing is an impossible task in Hong Kong's "cubic apartments."

Wong Mei Ying shares her apartment with an apartment in Hong Kong less than five square meters. As is the case for thousands of poor people in the former British colony, the instructions for social separation in the fight against a pandemic (Covid-19) have no meaning.

This 70-year-old woman lives in one of the city's famous "cubic apartments", divided into small rooms that make up some of the most crowded buildings in the world.

Concern of the elderly
Earlier this week, local authorities announced a new outbreak of the new Corona virus in the neighborhood inhabited by Wong, the first local transmission of this financial center in nearly a month. This news was a great concern for Wong.

With officials testing hundreds of residents around, Wong says she is trying to follow the government's advice of socializing and maintaining personal hygiene. However, this is not an easy issue in narrow cube apartments.

"We have 12 people living here," Wong told AFP, referring to the other five rooms in the apartment near a shared kitchen and shower.

Line up for cooking and bathroom. "We have to line up to cook our meals and there is a waiting list for showering. During dinner time, the kitchen is very crowded and each of us puts a mask."

Jacques Cite of the "Especially Methodist Social Services" - the French Press Agency - indicates that these apartments are very dangerous in terms of the risk of transmission of the virus, explaining that the ventilation and drainage systems are weak in these buildings.

Wong's apartment is located in a dilapidated building with cracked walls, what was supposed to be the main living room of one family with six rooms separated from each other with thin pre-made walls.

The Septuagint sleeps on a lower bed, while her 43-year-old son sleeps on the upper bed.

On paper, Hong Kong is one of the richest cities in the world, but it suffers from widespread inequality, acute housing shortages and high rents, all of which are problems successive governments have failed to solve.

In 2016, authorities estimated that about 200,000 people lived in rooms of 50 square feet or less, equivalent to about five cubic meters.

And Wong's room - which is renting two thousand local dollars ($ 258) per month - is not even the smallest room available for rent, there are so-called "cage houses" that barely accommodate one bed and are surrounded by a metal cage with a lock.

This citizen works in a fast food chain, and her work shifts are finally reduced from six days a week to five as businesses suffer from the impact of the epidemic.

She dreams of obtaining an independent apartment for her and her son who works in the field of construction, "but this matter costs between seven thousand and eight thousand local dollars per month, an amount equivalent to the salary I earn every month."