Doctor praises HK's effective response to novel coronavirus

The head of the Medicine and Geriatrics Department at the Ruttonjee and Tang Shiu Kin hospitals believes that the pandemic has been brought under control in Hong Kong.

Raymond Liu lauded the self-discipline that local residents have shown as they wear face masks to guard against the virus. However, there is no room for complacency. All the existing control measures should remain in force and should be relaxed step by step, he said.

Siu Mun-lei, the head nurse and ward manager at the same hospitals, agrees. Hong Kong must stay vigilant in case of a second wave resulting from Hong Kong residents returning from overseas, she said.

The pair made their points at an interview with China Daily. Liu has been a doctor for over 30 years and worked at the Hospital Authority for 25 years after graduation. Siu has about 30 years' experience as a nurse and has been a ward manager for 10 years.

Both of them confronted SARS back in 2003, and also the swine flu outbreak. When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, they volunteered to work in the isolation ward because they have relevant past experience.

"We first knew in December that pneumonia of an unknown origin had occurred in the mainland city of Wuhan," Liu recalled.

"With experience in handling SARS, we knew it must be a coronavirus because its behavior and the transmission path were very similar to that in 2003. In late December, the mainland authorities was in a position to report the situation to the World Health Organization.

"Hong Kong reported the first confirmed case on Jan 23, but we held the first meeting at Ruttonjee and Tang Shiu Kin hospitals on Jan 5 to make preparation, and so we were very well-prepared.

"Compared with SARS, COVID-19 is a very cunning, being more infectious yet in some cases without obvious symptoms."

Swift response

The doctor praised the Hospital Authority for devising effective response strategies, and the government for carrying out viral tests to trace the patients and their close contacts. He also gave a thumbs-up to the discipline of Hong Kong residents, who are willing to wear face masks.

Wearing masks "is the key factor in controlling COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Only four patients have died, and our mortality rate is well below 1 percent. The situation is still vulnerable overseas because they do not wear face masks", Liu said.

"Good coordination among hospitals and coordination between healthcare workers and management are essential to fighting the virus. Learning from the painful experience of SARS, when a large number of healthcare staff were infected, we did not admit several hundred patients in a single hospital, knowing that would ruin the hospital," he said.

Liu also revealed that the patients, including a medical student returning from the UK, said they felt more secure in Hong Kong although life in the isolation ward was strict and dull. In UK hospitals, even some healthcare workers don't wear masks because they believe only sick people need to wear masks according to Liu.

As ward manager, Siu has the responsibility of protecting the nursing staff and has accordingly worked out daily routine procedures in consultation with the doctors.

"To save them from entering the isolation ward many times every day, some daily routines are combined — for example, body-temperature-taking and blood-taking, and the dissemination of drugs and meals.

"We have taught the patients to observe good hygiene, including wearing face masks and washing hands. We also taught them ways to communicate with the healthcare staff by telephone if necessary. Apart from reading their medical records, we can monitor them through CCTV and see what they are doing from the glass doors outside the isolation wards so we need not go inside too often," she said.

To minimize the risk of cross-infection, healthcare workers wear protective gear at a certain location before entering the isolation ward, she said. When they leave, they take off and dispose of the gear at another location, and no two employees should be changing their gear at the same time.

Ruttonjee and Tang Shiu Kin hospitals are not "dragon head" hospitals, which are bigger and have greater resources to admit many COVID-19 patients, Siu added. On peak days, there were 20 COVID-19 patients, but only a few remain as the situation subsides.

Not time for complacency

Liu and Siu both say that now is not the time to lift all the control measures at once, even though the COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong has eased.

There is no longer a serious outbreak in the community, said Liu, while the infamous chains of infections, such as those at the Buddhist temple and pubs clusters, have been handled. A recent chain of patients without travel records has occurred in the Lei Muk Shue public housing estate, but he believes this to be an isolated case.

While personal hygiene and social distancing measures should remain in force, Liu believes it is too early to reopen all the immigration checkpoints and resume all international flights because the virus situation is still a problem overseas.

In his view, people should wait longer before they travel again, although he added that there is a need to strike a balance between fighting the virus and restarting the economy.

Closure of the majority of the immigration checkpoints has been an effective measure to contain the virus, as a large majority of the confirmed cases were imported from foreign countries like the UK and the US, the doctor said.