HONG KONG – When Shirley Leung, 60, woke up locked up in Hong Kong’s first coronavirus confinement, she examined the tiny room she shares with her adult son, which accommodates a single bed and cardboard boxes and plastic tubs for storing clothes.
She tried to ignore the smell of the ceiling and walls, which were covered with mold. She rationed the fresh vegetables she had at home, dissatisfied with the canned foods and instant noodles that the government had provided when it imposed restrictions on Saturday. She considered the limited and interconnected nature of her building.
“If a room is infected, then how is it possible that cases do not spread between subdivided apartments?” Leung said in a telephone interview. “How can it be safe?”
Hong Kong has been one of the most unequal places on the planet, a city where luxurious and elegant malls stand side by side with overcrowded tenements where the bathroom sometimes doubles as a kitchen. In normal times, this inequality is often hidden by the city’s shiny surface. But during the coronavirus pandemic, its cost became unmistakable.
More than 160 confirmed cases were found in the Jordan neighborhood from January 1 to the end of last week, in about 1,100 across the city. The government responded by arresting 10,000 residents in a 16-block area. More than 3,000 workers, many in anti-risk suits, came down to the area to conduct mass tests.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that the blockade was a success and added that more could happen; authorities announced one in neighboring Yau Ma Tei shortly after.
Officials suggested that the degraded living conditions of many Jordanian residents fueled the spread of the virus. A densely packed neighborhood known for a lively night market, old apartments and many restaurants, Jordan is home to some of the largest concentrations of tenements in the city, the subdivided apartments that are created when the apartments are divided into two or more smaller apartments.
More than 200,000 of the city’s poorest residents live in these units, where the average living space per person is 48 square feet – less than a third the size of a New York City parking space. Some spaces are so small and restrictive that they are called cages or coffins.
The same conditions that may have led to the outbreak also made the blockade particularly painful for many residents, who were concerned about losing even a day’s work or feared being trapped in poorly ventilated outbreaks of transmission. The authorities admitted that they did not know exactly how many people lived in the subdivided apartments, complicating efforts to test everyone. Discrimination against low-income residents in South Asia, many of whom are concentrated in the area, has also caused problems.
Some blamed the government for allowing conditions for an outbreak to worsen and then imposing heavy measures on a group that can least afford them. Hong Kong’s wealthy caused outbreaks of their own rules or disregarded the rules of social detachment, with no similar consequences.
“If they did something wrong, it was being poor, living in a subdivided apartment or having a different skin color,” said Andy Yu, an elected official in the blockade area.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, subdivided apartments have been a source of concern.
Mrs. Leung, the retiree, and her son have only one bed, where she sleeps at night and her son during the day, after returning from the night shift as a construction worker. A roof beam was showing cracks, but the owner postponed the repair, she said. Mold has also been a consistent problem, because of dirty water dripping from a neighboring unit.
Plumbing in subdivided apartments is often reconfigured to allow more bathrooms or kitchens, but the installation is often flawed. During the SARS outbreak in 2002-03, more than 300 people in a housing estate were infected and 42 died after the virus spread through defective plumbing.
The government promised reforms after SARS, but acknowledged that the situation remains dangerous.
“Many of the buildings in the restricted area are older and in poor condition,” Sophia Chan, secretary of food and health, said on Saturday. “The risk of infection in the community is very high.”
The blockade lasted only two days, until midnight on Sunday, when the government said it had successfully tested most residents of the area. Thirteen people tested positive.
But experts said the government was unable to resolve the underlying issues.
Wong Hung, associate director of the Institute of Health Equity at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the government had not properly regulated subdivided apartments.
“They are afraid that if they do anything, there will be nowhere where these low-income families can find accommodation,” said Professor Wong. Hong Kong’s housing market is consistently ranked as the least accessible in the world.
Hong Kong’s income inequality is also closely linked to ethnicity, and the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing discrimination against South Asian residents, who make up about 1% of the city’s population. Nearly a third of South Asian families with children in Hong Kong are below the poverty line, almost double the proportion of all households in the city, according to government data.
Many South Asians live in and around Jordan, including in subdivided apartments, and as the virus has spread, some residents have begun to make widespread accusations of unhygienic behavior.
Raymond Ho, a senior health official, caused outrage last week when he suggested that Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities were fueling the broadcast because “they like to share food, smoke, drink alcohol and talk”. Mrs. Lam, the city leader, said later that the government was not suggesting that the spread of the disease was linked to ethnicity.
Sushil Newa, the owner of a Nepalese restaurant with bright paintings in the lock zone, showed screenshots on his phone of online commentators comparing his community to animals and suggesting that they were alcoholics.
“We are just working hard here, paying taxes, so why are we isolated from Hong Kong?” said Mr. Newa, referring to discrimination, while an employee picked up biryani containers for travel.
Professor Wong said the government was also unable to communicate effectively with South Asian residents, which led to confusion over the blockade. The government later said it had sent translators. Other residents said the government provided food that was not culturally appropriate, such as pork for Muslims.
Still, Newa said he supported the blockade. Although he lost money, controlling the outbreak was more important, he said.
Other business owners agreed, but also demanded compensation from the government.
Low Hung-kau, owner of a corner stall, Shanghai Delicious Foods, said he was forced to discard ingredients he prepared in advance for steamed breads – an extra blow over the slump in business since the outbreak in the neighborhood began .
“I lost 60% of my business,” he said. “Almost no one comes by.”
He spent the day following the blockade gathering neighboring businessmen to ask the government to pay at least part of its losses over the weekend. Government officials shied away from questions about pay, saying only that they hoped employers would not deduct the wages of employees who missed work.
Activists criticized the government during the pandemic for its relief efforts, noting that it did not offer unemployment benefits. In addition, much of government aid has been directed to employers, not employees. Some companies have requested subsidies in exchange for keeping employees on payroll, but have given up on that promise.
Some had little choice but to overcome the block, despite the risks.
Ho Lai-ha, a 71-year-old cleaning lady, said she swept roads and cleaned up sewers over the weekend, just days after they were cited as potential sources of contamination.
“I’m a little scared, but there is no other way,” she said as she placed a duster on an open grill on Monday. “The area has been blocked, but our work continues.”