This evenings stats...
25 new cases, 15 with travel history and 10 local suspected infections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoEkCshMcOY
Mainland reporter working for Chinese run Phoenix TV pushes the cities credentials
Pubdate:
A fair few "F&B establishments" in TST are playing fast and loose with the new regulations. First place I was in insisted all customers ordered food (token order acceptable), next place which was busier as it was later didn't even bother with the pretence. Some places in East TST that I didn't even know sold food were still open for business.
Five guys in K11 was mobbed. People waiting for seats by the time I was leaving.
Whilst going up the escalators last night I had to walk by the Armoury in Tai Kwun and it was surprisingly quite busy. I've been to the Armoury many times before and have never noticed their food offerings - always assumed it was more of a bar - and noticed that none of the punters were actually eating anything.
This draws reinforces the question and confusion on how the hell the current administration is actually defining and enforcing what constitutes a bar vs a restaurant. Ridiculous.
To be clear - I have never been a fan of the Administration which I have always (pre-protest days) seen as incredibly inefficient, incompetent especially when it comes to driving the necessary technology changes in HK to bring this place up to par. Feel free to dig through my post history on my disdain for general ways of working for both the HK government and business community.Original Post Deleted
I didn't like them any more or less during the protests nor do I like them now.
But when faced with the lesser of two evils, I do not side with the destruction of HK's economy and the now shattered veneer that we were previously skating on.
I've read a lot of the literature and arguments that the protest movement has put forward out of curiosity as I consider myself a moderate.
The economy - other than destroying Chinese affiliated businesses and the admitted self destruction of Hong Kong's economy if the one side didn't get their way - was never on any protest agenda.
edit: btw instead of getting on an online tussle, let's meet the next time I come to Japan (or you come to HK) and I am happy to discuss our differences in person. I will buy the first round.
Besides the unequal policing on distancing measures at restaurants, if we charitably interpret the ambitions and intentions of the administration, I would guess they aim to prevent mingling between strangers. The bar area, whether of pubs or restaurants might be one sensible focal point. If people are seated at tables and only socialising in their limited family/social group, whether they are eating or drinking alcohol should concern no one.
Whether or not the administration or especially the police do have this clear-sighted objective, is of course open to reasonable doubt. I’m sure you know my feelings about how open to discussion the police appear to be.
No, it's totally cool. It's covered under the guidelines under 'social distancing pub crawls'Original Post Deleted
To clarify which establishments should be closed or stay open. I was told by a business owner in the F&B that:
- if you own a food license (restaurant type as there are different types of licenses), you stay open. The liquor license is an add on you have to apply for.
- while for bar you apply for the club liquor license and additionally for food license.
This is all a bit tricky but some places it's easy to see they're primarily selling food. While some it's just a grey area.
Still to me it doesn't make sense, restaurants should be shut too and doing takeaways only.
I agree that enforcement is tricky and that it would be easier to restrict to take away. That being said, the current number of cases has come back down, there's no evidence of widespread community transmission and testing numbers are good suggesting that there shouldn't be too many asymptomatic carriers in the community. The health system seems to be coping with the current volume of cases too so it doesn't seem like stricter measures are warranted at this point and given that the lack of space in HK, it doesn't seem unreasonable to maintain the status quo for now.
I would like to hear the government's plan for moving forward. When do we start scaling back on local measures. I heard a suggestion which was when more people were being discharged than admitted for a number of days then it might be reasonable to start the process of returning to normal. As always, I'm not confident that the government has a strategy nor that they will be transparent about it.