🐹 Hamster Mayhem
🐹 Hamster Mayhem
Save the hamsters: petition inside
Good morning.
Unless you’re a hamster in Hong Kong. Then it is very much not a good morning.
— Jasmine “I swear I’m funny sometimes” Lee
On Today’s Tide
COVID-19 | Hong Kong to exterminate a whole shop of hamsters due to COVID-19 positives. A kindergarten teacher is the latest untraceable case in the city. Partial evacuation in Sham Shui Po.
Events | The future of money & power
Protests | Grandma Wong and a fitness coach sentenced to jail.
Other | Shimao selling two floors. Unemployment falls. Late tycoon’s family takes time out from court.
Whole shop of hamsters to be “humanely dispatched” after testing positive for COVID-19
Hong Kong Twitter was in an uproar yesterday after news came out that the government would be culling 2,000 hamsters belonging to the pet shop Little Boss in Causeway Bay after samples from the little rodents tested positive for COVID-19.
“[A]ll animals in Little Boss, a pet shop in Causeway Bay, and its warehouse in Tai Po will be humanely dispatched to minimise the potential risks of COVID-19 infection and safeguard public safety.”
— Government Press Release
The nature of the ‘humane dispatch’ was not explained, so feel free to assume the worst.
Experts were unable to trace the origin of this outbreak and say they are taking this measure as they “cannot rule out the possibility” that transmission occurred from animal to human (rather than human-to-animal). Just days ago, an employee at Little Boss tested positive for the same Delta variant the little critters also carried.
Other shops that sell hamsters have also been ordered to suspend their businesses right away and the animals will be undergoing COVID-19 testing.
If you’d like to give these hamsters a fighting chance, you can sign this petition. If not, feel free to join the mess on Twitter if you haven’t already.
COVID-19
New cases: 18 (7 imported, 10 linked to imported cases, 1 local)
Compulsory testing has been mandated for 62 specified premises during a specific period. See the Annex for details.
A kindergarten teacher is the latest untraceable COVID-19 case in the city.
A residential block in Sham Shui Po was partially evacuated after reports of a family who was infected by a relative who arrived from Pakistan last month.
Events
The Future of Money and Power: e-RMB and CIPS
Join this lunch to learn more about China’s electronic currency and its “answer to the American-dominated SWIFT system: CIPS”. The talk emphasises the importance of China’s monetary system “as a global currency to rival the Euro and maybe, someday, the USD.” The speaker will be one of our own: Andrew Work, founder of Harbour Times and Co-founder and Director of the Lion Rock Institute.
When: 18 February 2022, 12:30 – 2 PM
Where: The Foreign Correspondents' Club - Verandah
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Grandma Wong arrested for ID refusal
Protest-related updates
Grandma Wong, a popular opposition protester figure, was arrested and sentenced to four days in jail for refusing to show police officers her ID upon request at a protest last year. The protest took place on 22 January in order to commemorate the death of Chan Yin-lam, who was an activist as well.
A fitness coach was given a suspended jail sentence of 21 days for making posts online that called police officers “bastards” and threatened their lives. The man, Edward Sung, pleaded guilty to violating the ban on inciting violence online yesterday.
Other headlines
Unemployment falls to 3.9% in Hong Kong.
The founder of Shimao group is looking to sell two floors at The Center. Anyone looking to buy the 31st and 32nd floor of a skyscraper?
The family of late billionaire tycoon Henry Fok Ying-tung will be taking a two-day break to see if they can resolve a dispute over a single share Fok left behind worth billions.