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Covid-19 has wreaked havoc worldwide. To mitigate the spread of the virus, societies around the world implemented various social control measures and restrictions on mobility. Traditional work practices were upended, leading to a widespread adoption of telecommuting in many cities, effectively turning urban spaces into expansive work-from-home laboratories. The exchange of digitized documents, virtual conversations, and online transactions replaced physical movements and face-to-face communication, allowing for the continuation of productive activities. This shift to telecommuting raises important questions about the impact on traditional business practices and power dynamics in the workplace. It also prompts us to examine how new communication and surveillance tools facilitate collaboration and enhance worker productivity. Furthermore, it is essential to understand how employees navigate and adapt to the opportunities and limitations presented in a teleworking environment. To gain insights into these issues, this paper focuses on the experiences of work-from-home employees in the community of Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong, using the concept of governmobility as an analytical framework. The findings reveal that telecommuting is enabled by innovative social interaction mechanisms, changes in power dynamics, and the implementation of new discourse and surveillance methods, all of which are contingent on specific work and life conditions. The various experiences of telecommuting, such as working in a home office, in virtual workspaces, and using on-body devices, demonstrate adaptable responses to the emerging opportunities and constraints of telecommuting. These experiences illuminate the intricate ways in which work and life intertwine in both physical and temporal dimensions. • Exploring the mechanisms of governmobility in telecommuting during the Covid-19 pandemic. • Theorizing diverse telecommuting practices and experiences. • Discussing the prospects of telecommuting in the post-Covid world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic congestion has been a persistent problem in cities globally. Theoretically, commuting-related congestion can be relieved by promoting working from home (WFH). Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, WFH arrangement has been encouraged or enforced to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Under these circumstances, it was reported that traffic congestion has been alleviated in many cities. However, changes in congestion patterns within a city have not been studied in-depth. In this study, we analysed the congestion index (CI) at peak hours, when commuting-related congestion is typically most serious, throughout different waves of the pandemic in Hong Kong. Results show that under WFH arrangement, peak-hour congestion has been alleviated. Within a day, morning peak congestion was more relieved. Spatially, significant drops in CI were found not only in the central business district and urban cores but also in some new town areas. This paper has significant implications for urban planners in creating more sustainable cities that duly consider the commuting needs of residents, and cautions against the optimism that WFH can relieve urban transport problems despite jobs-housing imbalance. While the WFH arrangement has potentials to ease commuting congestion, future e-working and transport measures need to take spatial and temporal dimensions into account. • Spatio-temporal dynamics of urban traffic congestion under COVID-19 were captured. • In Hong Kong, work from home had a bigger impact on morning than evening peak. • Morning peak congestion relief was not only limited to the CBD. • The two commuting peaks were identifiable even during work from home periods. • About 25% of planning units had lower peak-hour congestion under the "new normal". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, an exceptional crisis, sparked the introduction of new digital infrastructure to halt the novel coronavirus's spread. This paper explores how such digital infrastructure's impact might reverberate over the long term, by comparing Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China's utilization of digital technology in response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, and their responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We find that advancements in digital technology since 2003 have boosted governments' surveillance and segregation abilities substantially—most dramatically so in China. Even though some of these new digital interventions are ostensibly designed to be temporary ones to address the needs of the immediate crisis, we argue that the resultant extensions of state power experienced during COVID-19 are likely to have profound long-term effects because they fundamentally affect sociopolitical contexts, institutional capabilities, and digital cultures. We also find that the extent to which governments can extend digital surveillance and segregation abilities during the pandemic is contingent on their respective sociopolitical, institutional, and digital cultural contexts. • COVID-19 pandemic sparked calls for a new digital infrastructure. • We compare 2003 SARS outbreak to COVID-19 pandemic. • New digital technologies increased governments' ability to surveil and segregate. • Their impact on surveillance and segregation will persist post COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to control the covid-19 pandemic in large cities like Hong Kong? Many cities have adopted various mitigation measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic. But few studies have been made to measure the impact of mitigation measures on infection risk at city level such as Hong Kong. This paper introduced three indicators to measure the infection risk of covid-19 under mitigation measures: the infection rate, the primary risk of infection and daily risk of infection. Two factors are introduced to consider the impact of mitigation measures on infection risk in Hong Kong. They are the number of trips per day and the percentage of people wearing face masks. With these two mitigation measures, the daily risk of infection was reduced from 1826.11 per million to 644.58 per million in the peak of covid-19 infection on 2 August 2020. The covid-19 infection risk would be 2.83 times higher if above mitigation measures were not adopted. The covid-19 pandemic continues in 2021 and city governments are strongly recommended to take effective measures to encourage the public to reduce unnecessary trips and wear face mask before the pandemic is fully controlled. • A measure of daily risk of covid-19 infection is introduced. • It is possible to control the covid-19 pandemic in large cities like Hong Kong. • The peak of infection risk would be 2.83 times higher without mitigation measures in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]