🌊Not so Bleak
🌊Not so Bleak
Oh god don't make schools go back to half day Zoom classes
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On Today’s Tide
Culture | Bleak House Books reopens in New York
COVID |
Kai-Tak opens for business
CHP stops double checking all RAT tests
Education |
All students to start testing 2 days before school starts
Schools to get awards for vax rates
Students scared of socialising without masks. Don’t go back to half days: education sector
Behind the paywall:
Protest and Politics |
Gun-shot wounded protestor gets charged
99% of LSD case redacted by prosecution
Bao Choy appeals conviction
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Bleak House Re-opens in New York
Exactly one year ago today, we wrote that Bleak House books, a little boutique store in San Po Kong, was closing. The political uncertainty made owner Albert Wan and his wife Jenny decide to take their family back to the States.
Today, they announced on Twitter that Bleak House Books will be re-opening in Western New York.
“If all goes according to plan, our new bookshop will, in many ways, mirror the bookshop of old. It will still have a kiddie corner, lots of fiction, a mix of used and new books, and, of course, our own ‘Love Letter to HK’ in books. But it will also be bigger, in space and selection, and operate in a climate of considerable uncertainty, conflict and cost”
Bleak House Books on Twitter not being bleak.
The bookstore was known for being one of the few independent English bookstores. Aside from the normal offering of bestsellers, they also stocked rare antique books, political writing and had a large comfortable reading corner.
COVID in Hong Kong
COVID-19 in Hong Kong
New cases: 8488 (236 imported)
Total cases: 1,522,460
New deaths: 4
Total deaths: 9,668
Compulsory Testing locations:
Treat yourself to a stay at Kai Tak
Kai Tak Quarantine Centre at the old airport runway is opening for business. The camp will primarily take close residents of elderly homes classified as close contacts. 260 out of a max capacity of 768 will come online on the 2nd.
CHP stops double checking everyone’s tests
Health officials said yesterday they’ll stop doing PCR tests on everyone who reports a positive RAT test, but instead carry out spot checks.
Currently, self-reported RAT tests are all double checked by the CHP. This was due to a large amount of false positives when the self-reporting system was first announced.
However, due to the current increase in cases, the CHP said they need to conserve manpower. They also said that the rate of false positives is currently quite low.
Education & COVID: a match made in hell
Mandatory student testing to start before school starts
Students and staff have to start doing daily RAT tests from today - two days before school officially starts on 1st Sept. Until further notice, all students and staff have to do RAT tests in the morning. The EDB said this will help the affected get used to the system.
Half-day face-to-face classes will continue operating into the new schol year.
Awards for vaccinations
What the awards encompass is yet to be announced.
The statistics gathered will be used for better policy design but will not be publicized to avoid giving undue pressure to schools.
Father, I cannot speak without the mask
Education sector lawmaker Lau Yu-Lung cautioned he government against “casually rolling back face-to-face teaching” as studies are now showing detrimental social effects of prolonged online teaching including video game addiction, obesity and issues with socialising.
A new study undertaken by the Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service found that some 63% of 1000 students interviewed were afriad of socialising without masks on .
Lau said that if vaccination rates went up to 90% in a school community, full day face-to-face classes should be continued. He also said that schools should be allowed to keep running extra-curricular activities, as they complement what students learn in class.
Events and deals
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Official media partner: ReThink HK returns 5-6 Oct
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HK$575 instead of $949 after 5 Sept!
HT is proud to once again be a media partner for ReThink - HK’s biggest and most exciting sustainability conference. This year’s conference invites more than 300 expert speakers to share their visions and insights, covering important topics like economic progression while coexisting with nature harmoniously, efficient use of resources, transformation to a low-carbon society, and circular economy for future generations.
Ukrainian Cinema: Contemporary filmmaking @ The Goethe Institut
“Fear sows political bigotry, rumours turn into conspiracy theories, cultural fronts harden” – for these reasons The Goethe Institut is hosting a series of films by Ukrainian filmmakers to support local cultural creators and explore Ukrainian culture together.
Five films will be shown over the course of September including The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy), Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych) and The Rain Will Never Stop (Alina Gorlova)
Find all times and dates here.
And book your tickets directly from Broadway Cinematheque here.
Look under the ‘bc Sunday’ special programme when booking!
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