FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY SHIBANI MAHTANI,
TIFFANY LIANG
AND RYAN HO KILPATRICKhong kong — As a ban on
dine-in eating took effect here
Wednesday, a construction union
asked members on Facebook
where they were having their
lunch.
One said he was “having a side
of sawdust” and posted a photo of
his takeout box at his building
site. Another wrote that his bread
got wet after a sudden downpour,
so he abandoned his meal. Several
shared photos of workers huddled
under walkways or on sidewalks,
eating on the ground as people
passed by.
Facing a record surge of novel
coronavirus cases, Hong Kong au-
thorities imposed strict social dis-
tancing measures, including the
dine-in ban. But they stopped
short of a lockdown — leaving
construction crews, cleaners and
others who cannot work from
home or in air-conditioned offices
squatting by gutters and enduring
stifling heat to have their lunch.
Within 48 hours, the govern-
ment reversed on the plan after a
torrent of criticism — including
from its political allies — that the
policy appeared heartless. Dine-
in eating will resume Friday, but
restaurants will have to close by
6 p.m. and offer takeout only after
that time, officials said Thursday.
A maximum of two people will be
allowed per table.
The episode underlined the
Hong Kong government’s inabili-
ty to balance policymaking with
citizens’ welfare at a time when
issues of state security and a
crackdown on dissent have preoc-
cupied officials. After earlier
backflips on banning alcohol in
restaurants and mandating mask-
wearing — which the government
tried to outlaw last year over polit-
ical unrest — the reversal has left
residents distrustful and con-
fused by the pandemic response.
“Everyone can see that this has
badly hurt the government’s cred-
ibility, even among their support-
ers,” said Ivan Choy, a senior lec-
turer at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong who specializes in the
city’s political leadership. “The
government has a responsibility
to make decisions in a balanced
way but has failed in this case.”
The dine-in suspension, an-
nounced Monday, came in re-
sponse to a resurgence of corona-
virus infections this month. With
more than 100 new cases reported
for several consecutive days —
many of them untraceable — this
wave was the most severe since
the virus surfaced here in Janu-
ary.
Medical experts have blamed
exemptions that government data
show allowed more than 250,
people to enter Hong Kong with-
out quarantining for 14 days or
taking a c oronavirus test. Beforethis wave, Hong Kong had gone
almost a month without a local
transmission
“People have come to see this
third wave as a result of a mistake
committed by the government,
but yet, we all have to bear the
consequences,” Choy said.
While officials took aim at res-
taurants, businesses such as hair
salons, retail shops, supermarkets
and others continued to operate
as normal. Construction in the
dense city hums away as usual.
Moving companies, delivery
workers, technicians, repair peo-
ple and others have carried on, as
have street cleaners and security
guards.
When the measures were an-nounced, Matthew Cheung, Hong
Kong’s chief secretary, said work-
ers who did not have the option of
staying home could eat their
lunch in their offices, or in coun-
try parks where there were no
restrictions. Country parks in
Hong Kong are mostly far from
the city center and tend to be hilly
or forested areas known for hik-
ing trails.
The reality of the arrangement
became clear Wednesday, when
photos circulated on social media
showing society’s most vulnera-
ble forced to eat meals in degrad-
ing conditions. Hong Kong is
among the world’s most expen-
sive housing markets, and for
many, cooking at home is a luxurythey cannot afford in an apart-
ment scarcely bigger than 100
square feet. In a city severely lack-
ing in public space, local restau-
rants known as cha chaan tengs
have long provided inexpensive
meals that fuel a swath of the
workforce.
A 27-year-old telecom repair-
man, eating on a bench outside a
subway station under a sliver of
shade in 90-degree weather
Thursday, said restaurants are his
only lunch option given that he
spends his workday at other peo-
ple’s homes.
“For seven months, we’ve been
wearing masks, washing hands,
trying to distance and staying at
home, but then the governmentlet in thousands and thousands of
people with no testing or quaran-
tine and now we have the third
wave,” said the man, who gave
only his last name, Sze. “What did
we do wrong to deserve this?”
Louisa Mak, a 46-year-old DHL
courier agent, said she felt lucky
that she found a bench to eat
lunch on Thursday. The previous
day, she had to stand under a tree.
“How could we possibly find a
country park to sit in during our
workday?” Mak asked. “Their
thinking makes no sense to me.”
Some infectious-disease ex-
perts say suspending dine-in ser-
vices may not have been neces-
sary, given the impact on the
economy, welfare concerns and
the limited benefit to public
health.
“I was concerned when I heard
about this idea of stopping din-
ing-in services,” said Ben Cowling,
an epidemiologist at the Universi-
ty of Hong Kong. “There is no
guarantee that there would be a
safer place to eat lunch in than a
restaurant.”
Cowling noted that restaurants
have implemented measures such
as mandatory temperature-tak-
ing and adding partitions be-
tween tables to mitigate the
spread of the virus that causes the
disease covid-19. Nearly all res-
taurants offer alcohol-based sani-
tizer, and some record customers’
contact details to make tracing
easier if a case linked to their
establishment emerges.
Lam Tai-man, a 36-year-old
construction worker who was eat-
ing near his worksite Thursday,
lamented that he could no longer
go to the cafeteria where his com-
pany normally provided an inex-
pensive lunch.
“Now, there’s no iced coffee, no
baked pork chop rice — only rice
with dust,” said Lam, whose sub-
divided apartment has no cook-
ing facilities. “I don’t know what
the government wants from us.
No one trusts them.”
He added: “Can officials who
are sitting in a room with air-con-
ditioning come here under the hot
sun, and eat outside with us, be-
fore they come up with a policy?”
[email protected]In Hong Kong, virus policy flip-flops lead to confusion
ANTHONY WALLACE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
A construction worker prepares to eat his lunch in Hong Kong this week. Authorities reversed a ban on dining inside restaurants after a
torrent of criticism that the policy, intended to prevent new infections, was unfair to those who don’t work at home or in offices.front-line health workers and for
failing to quickly roll out a robust
test-and-trace system.
Edward Morgan, an expert at
the Office for National Statistics,
said that the first half of 2020 saw
“extraordinary increases in mor-
tality rates across countries in
Western Europe above the 2015
to 2019 average.”
He said that in some countries,
including Italy and Spain, the
numbers were localized to specif-
ic regions, whereas the increase
in deaths in Britain was more
geographically widespread.
A breakdown by city showed
that at its worst, the death rate in
Bergamo in northern Italy was
847.7 percent higher than nor-
mal; in Madrid, it was 432.
percent higher than normal
Some cities actually saw fewer
deaths than usual during this
period. When the pandemic was
at its worst in Rome, it still
reported 2.4 percent fewer
deaths than its five-year average.
Although the excess deaths
assessment only examined a peri-
od through the end of May, John-
son stressed on Thursday that the
pandemic was not over and that
Britons shouldn’t “delude” them-
selves into thinking that they are
“out of the woods.”
His government is extending
the self-isolation period for those
with symptoms of covid-19 from
seven days to 10. And, after a rise
in coronavirus cases in Spain, it isrequiring that travelers from
Spain quarantine for 14 days
upon arrival in Britain.
“We can see, sadly, a second
wave of coronavirus that’s start-
ing to roll across Europe,” Health
Secretary Matt Hancock told the
BBC. “We want to do everything
we possibly can to protect people
here, and protect people from
that wave reaching our shores.”
The move caught many British
holidaymakers currently in Spain
— including Transport Secretary
Grant Shapps — by surprise.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro
Sánchez hit back, saying Britain
should consider the regional
variations; the reemergence of
the virus has been largely concen-
trated in the Catalonia region.
Sánchez added that British tour-
ists would be safer in most parts
of Spain than they would be in
the U.K.
Veena Raleigh, an epidemiolo-
gist and senior fellow at the
King’s Fund think tank, said life
expectancy in Britain had stalled
in recent years, lagging behind
other European countries, and
that the U.K.’s high coronavirus
death toll could see it “slide even
further down the life expectancy
league tables.” It was, she said,
“essential to tackle the underly-
ing reasons for stalling life expec-
tancy in recent years — many of
which contribute to poor covid-
19 outcomes.”
[email protected]BY KARLA ADAMlondon — England topped Eu-
rope’s grim league table for high-
est levels of excess deaths during
the coronavirus pandemic, ac-
cording to a new analysis pub-
lished Thursday by Britain’s Of-
fice for National Statistics.
The analysis of more than
20 European countries — includ-
ing the four nations of the United
Kingdom — found that England’s
death rate was 7.55 percent high-
er this year through the end of
May, compared with its five-year
average. Spain was next, with a
6.65 percent increase over its
average. Scotland was 5.11 per-
cent above its average and Bel-
gium 3.89 percent.
Because different countries
have used different methods to
calculate coronavirus deaths,
many scientists consider excess
mortality a more reliable way to
measure the impact of the virus
and to draw comparisons. Excess
E ngland
tops study
on excess
mortality
mortality would include not just
fatalities that were directly relat-
ed to covid-19, the disease caused
by the coronavirus, but also the
deaths of people who were hesi-
tant to seek care for serious
conditions or who did not receive
the usual level of care while the
health system was focused on the
pandemic.
When asked by a reporter if he
was “ashamed” by the findings,
British Prime Minister BorisJohnson responded, “We mourn
every loss of life that we’ve had
throughout the coronavirus epi-
demic.” But he added that “clearly
this country has had a massive
success now in reducing the
numbers of those tragic deaths.”
According to the U.K. assess-
ment, Spain had Europe’s highest
national mortality peak, with the
number of deaths 138.5 percent
higher at the beginning of April
than in previous years. Englandhad the second-highest peak: In
mid-April, the number of excess
deaths was 107.6 percent higher
than the average.
The number of coronavirus
patients dying in British hospi-
tals each day has fallen sharply
since then. But Johnson’s govern-
ment has come under criticism
for having been later than other
European countries to impose a
lockdown, for not providing
enough protective equipment toFRANK AUGSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
England’s death rate was 7.55 percent higher this year through May. Above: A procession in London.had that morning cut a check to
WE Charity for more than $30,0 00
in travel expenses incurred in 2017
when he and members of his fami-
ly traveled with the organization to
Kenya and Ecuador.
Morneau, who is also being in-
vestigated by the ethics watchdog,
said he had realized only that week
that he had not paid those expens-
es. He insisted it was always his
intention “to pay the full costs of
the trips” and offered another
apology.
But WE Charity said the trips
had been “complimentary.” In a
news release, the organization
said it occasionally invites poten-
tial donors on trips to see its work
up close, and extended invites to
Morneau and his wife because
they were well-known philanthro-
pists.
The government has offered in-
consistent information about the
youth grant program. After
Trudeau announced the $14 mil-
lion payout to WE Charity, news
reports and testimony revealed
that the agreement was with the
WE Charity Foundation, an entity
the organization says manages
“ legal liability,” and that it stood to
receive up to $32 million.
Others in the charity sector havedisputed the claim that only WE
Charity could run the program.
After a senior public servant testi-
fied that WE Charity had sent pro-
posals for youth-related programs
to cabinet ministers’ offices in
April, before the program was an-
nounced, opposition lawmakers
wondered whether political staff-
ers put their thumbs on the scale.
Opinion polls suggest the scan-
dal is chipping away at support for
Trudeau, who had seen gains for
his government’s generally lauded
response to the pandemic.
Trudeau, who campaigned on
promises to bring “sunny ways”
and transparency to government
before he was elected prime minis-
ter in 2015, was rapped twice by the
ethics watchdog for contravening
conflict-of-interest laws during his
first mandate. His Liberals lost
their majority in the October elec-
tion; he now leads a minority gov-
ernment.
Trudeau said he regretted how
“this has unfolded” and noted the
other supports provided to stu-
dents during the pandemic. “ Un-
fortunately, the grant for volun-
teer service is unlikely to be a part
of that package this summer, and
that is something I regret,” he said.
[email protected]BY AMANDA COLETTAtoronto — Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau defended
himself before a parliamentary
committee Thursday, saying that
he did nothing to influence his
government’s decision to pick a
charity with long-standing ties to
his family to run a $670 million
grant program for student volun-
teers, and that he even “pushed
back” when the nonpartisan pub-
lic service first recommended it
because he knew it would draw
“scrutiny.”
“WE Charity received no prefer-
ential treatment — not from me,
not from anyone else,” Trudeau
said in the video link appearance
before the House of Commons fi-
nance committee, unusual for a
sitting prime minister. The 90-
minute session was broadcast live
on Canadian television.
The Liberal leader apologized
again for his failure to recuse him-
self from cabinet discussions on
the deal. He’s trying to quiet the
burgeoning ethics scandal that has
cast a pall over his minority gov-
ernment, drawn his third ethics
investigation as prime minister
and fueled calls that he and his
finance minister resign.
Trudeau first announced the
program, which would help stu-
dents having trouble finding sum-
mer jobs during the coronavirus
outbreak by paying them to volun-
teer in their communities, in
April.
In his testimony Thursday,
Trudeau said he did not learn that
public servants were recommend-
ing that the Toronto-based WE
Charity administer the program
until a briefing before a cabinet
meeting on May 8. He said he had
“expected” that the Canada Ser-
vice Corps, an existing govern-
ment youth initiative, would man-
age the program, but was told it
could not scale up to deliver it.
Trudeau, who has spoken at
several WE Charity events, and
whose wife, Sophie Grégoire
Trudeau, is a WE “ambassador,”
said he knew the selection of the
charity would be “closely scruti-
nized,” so he took the proposal off
the cabinet agenda and asked thepublic service to make sure “that
all the i’s were dotted, all the t’s
were crossed.”
When the decision went back
before cabinet on May 22, Trudeau
said, the public service said it was
confident in its recommendation.
“In effect, they said that if we
wanted this program to happen, it
could only be with WE Charity,” he
said. “The choice was not between
providers. It was between going
ahead with WE Charity to deliver
the program or not going ahead
with the program at all.”
Trudeau said Canada’s ethics
watchdog has approved his wife’s
work with the organization.
“As I said, I should have recused
myself from this decision to avoid
the appearance of favoritism,” he
told the committee. “I know that
appearances can harm a good pro-
gram and, of course, that’s exactly
what happened here.”
Trudeau responded to his ques-
tioners in both English and
French. His appearance was inter-
rupted briefly when the commit-
tee chair’s power went out.
Trudeau announced in Junethat WE Charity would be paid
$14 million to administer the pro-
gram. Critics, recognizing the or-
ganization’s links to his family,
pounced.
Amid the swirling controversy,
the agreement was dissolved, and
the federal government said the
program would be run by public
servants instead. Canada’s inde-
pendent ethics watchdog
launched the probe of Trudeau.
Then media reports and testi-
mony revealed that the charity and
its for-profit arm had paid
Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, and
his brother Alexandre more than
$220,000 to appear and speak at
its events from 2016 to 2020, and
covered more than $150, 000 of
their expenses.
Trudeau and Finance Minister
Bill Morneau, whose family has its
own ties to the charity, apologized
for failing to recuse themselves
from the cabinet discussions. But
that hasn’t been enough to tamp
down the controversy.
During Morneau’s turn in the
hot seat last week, the finance min-
ister told the committee that heIn rare testimony, Trudeau defends charity deal