> #HongKong independent bookstore Mount Zero Books has announced it'll close in March 2024. Besides a bookstore, it's also a culture & community space. It's been harassed by the government's Lands Dept & anonymous complaints. Above its entrance, the slogan, "Ideas are bulletproof."
So they're finally out now, that's cool. The government program is just for risk groups now though, so we'll see if that means private clinics stock it too, or if they're slower, or not offering at all as was the case in early Dec. Also I wonder if they offer it together with a seasonal flu vaccine.
In one #hotel in #NYC, I was on the 41st floor when we had a fire alarm go off. I admit that I grabbed both computer backpacks (personal and $EMPLOYER), but after heading down 40 floors, I was wiped out for the rest of the night and also the next day.
In the US, at least, they shut off the elevators during a fire alarm, so your choices are (1) walk down the stairs until you reach the bottom or (2) stay where you are and hope you don't die. Well, there is a 3rd choice: walk downstairs, but not all the way. But you need to get below the floor with the fire _and_ hope that the upper floors don't collapse.
I don't know what the answer is, but high rises need a better escape plan than that.
(Another factor in New York is that many buildings are pretty old, so they don't have modern structural improvements. I'm assuming, but cannot be sure, that most of #Hong_Kong's taller buildings are somewhat newer and likely to have some structural improvements over older buildings. Also, in #Manhattan, #Brooklyn, and possibly other boroughs of New York, some buildings are built so close together that they touch their neighbors.)
Wait ... I'm getting some corrections here ... ah yes, sorry ... it's President Xi, it's the S.A.R. Establishment Day, Lee was elected, the Joint Declaration is a historic document with no legal force and it's the victory *of* One Country, Two Systems. Sometimes I get the terminology a bit wrong.
> SARGovt:Let's all take rapid antigen test every day on Apr 8-10. Report positive result via chp.gov.hk/ratp in 24 hours. Support hotline1833019 (DO NOT REPLY) #covid#hongkong
We arrived in the right place about three hours ago. Still queueing for my compulsory covid test (day 26 of international arrival) and the queue in front of me snakes through an entire park, I estimate around 1000 people in front of me and I advanced maybe 500 places since I arrived.