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This paper conducts a comparative analysis of the governance and policing frameworks in Hong Kong and Taiwan, examining their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic’s public health crisis and the resulting shifts in policing contexts. Hong Kong experienced significant changes in police-citizen relations before the pandemic, notably during the 2019 protests that garnered global media attention and eroded public trust in the government. With the advent of COVID-19, Hong Kong introduced stringent anti-pandemic legislation aimed at achieving ‘zero-COVID’, further empowering the police for law enforcement. In contrast, Taiwan effectively managed the epidemic from 2020, keeping mass infections at bay until mid-2022, without significant social conflicts. This study delves into the academic implications of these divergent outcomes, seeking to explain what and why changes occurred (or did not) in these two places. Hong Kong’s response to the global health crisis, including the introduction of the National Security Law, fundamentally transformed its policing context, dismantling autonomous civil societies and reshaping public trust in the government and its police. In comparison, Taiwan’s policing exhibited limited post-crisis transformation, maintaining high public trust even amid stringent quarantine and lockdown regulations. This divergence reflects varying pathways of the legitimisation of police influenced by geopolitics, underscoring the importance of comparative studies in comprehending transformations of policing in different contexts following the global public health crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 'staycation' has become a buzzword during the COVID-19 pandemic, research on staycation experiences is still limited. This paper conducts a fine-grained sentiment analysis integrated with a factor extraction approach to explore the positive and negative factors influencing the staycation experience in Hong Kong hotels. Using online reviews of staycations, this study builds an ordered logit model to determine the influences of these factors on customers' staycation experiences and reveals the heterogeneous effects between different types of hotels and customer segments. This study contributes to the limited hotel staycation experience literature and provides important managerial implications for hotels that target local residents for the growing staycation market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines British Chinese communities' lived experiences of leisure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data that inform this paper are based on my ongoing ethnographic research with British Chinese students in two supplementary schools in the United Kingdom (UK) about their leisure and health-related experiences (supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship 2019–2020). The current findings are discussed in relation to my field notes, interviews with the students and their significant others from the schools, and social media sites that report on Chineseness and COVID-19. Results include the participants' change of lifestyles; fear and the pandemic; experiences of racism in relation to their leisure; and leisure and solidarity among Chinese communities. As a Hong Kong Chinese Australian researcher situated in the UK, I have an "insider and outsider" positionality which has an impact on data collection with the participants amidst the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of COVID required many libraries to re-imagine how they conducted their services. It also identified needs and gaps in the delivery of these services to the community. In response to changes such as extended lockdowns and the resultant economic difficulties and the wider need for digital literacy skills, Hong Kong SKH Ming Hua Theological College Library (MH College) established an international collaboration to develop and deliver online tours/ talks as a library skills program with librarians, faculty, students, and professionals in Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. The overall aims of this initiative were to provide an online library skills program for education, leisure and to make the value of librarians and libraries visible to stakeholders during the pandemic to ensure the upkeep of library resources, budgeting and staffing. Through partnerships with key stakeholders and the use of a variety of innovative IT tools, real-time online activities were conducted in three languages (English, Chinese and Japanese) to an internationally distributed audience. This paper will outline the background and organisation of the program, its design and discuss the lessons learned and implications for practice of the strategies used in the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about an ongoing funded street photography and practice-led creative writing research project set in Hong Kong that has since been derailed both by the 2019 anti-government protests and by the Covid-19 pandemic. Various places in Hong Kong that had been previously chosen as sites of exploration were at times overwritten by anti-government graffiti, with the mood on the ground also overdetermined by the pandemic. Hence, the social environment is marked with anxiety and caution. This becomes an opportunity for reworking and rethinking. By means of aesthetic responsiveness via street photography, coupled with an autoethnographic-based documentary writing, Hong Kong is allowed to speak its moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic effects of tourism industry during periods of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have received significant attention in recent years. The future is likely to pose a range of new challenges and opportunities to sustainable tourism. This paper employs the Markov-switching vector autoregressions (MSVAR) model to investigate the sustainability of tourism's economic effects in Hong Kong, both during periods of crisis and in the absence of crises. The empirical results show that: (1) The MSVAR model is effective in capturing the nonlinear relationship between the economy and tourism and allows for the categorizing of this relationship into four regimes, for example, the "major event crises" regime and the "economic crises" regime; (2) The economic effects of tourism differ noticeably across the four different regimes, and sustainability varies depending on the presence and type of crisis; (3) The Hong Kong economy, and the tourism industry in particular, exhibits high levels of stability and sustainability. In short, economic growth in Hong Kong's tourism industry is capable of rapid recovery following major crisis events, and it has the capacity to rebound quickly into new periods of rapid growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 global pandemic continues, and in Hong Kong numerous measures have been put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus. One of the many facets of life that is being affected is education, with many face-to-face classes suspended and students having to go online for lessons. The virus continues to be active in the city, so our usual way of assisting secondary school students' character-building through visitation to elderly homes is restricted. Now we can only provide such service-learning in online mode. This paper explores how an online project helped adolescents in a boys' secondary school apply and adapt principles taught previously in their course dealing with positive character strengths such as kindness, love, social intelligence, gratitude, teamwork, and perseverance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong experienced the SARS pandemic in 2003. Seventeen years later, the Covid-19 pandemic now challenges Hong Kong and the world. This study aims to unveil the impact of the pandemic on health social workers. One hundred and sixty-six health care social workers in Hong Kong were recruited to join a cross-sectional online survey from November 2020 to March 2021. This paper includes the analysis of the demographic information, fear of contamination, resilience, perceived social support and physical health only. Irrespective of the demographic background, the level of fear of contamination, resilience, perceived social support and physical health were similar. The mean scores of the two dimensions of fear of contamination (Harm avoidance: m = 7.49, s.d. = 3.25; Disgust avoidance: m = 7.75, s.d. = 2.90) were higher than those of general public and clinical samples with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. No moderation effects were found in resilience and perceived social support in the relationship of fear of contamination and physical health. Instead, direct effects were shown.The impact of the pandemic on health social workers was universal. Psychoeducational programs to alleviate the fear of contamination and organizational-level interventions to improve workplace social support are highly needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals' vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health scholarship. Recognising these barriers, this paper applies a gender matrix methodology, grounded in feminist political economy approaches, to evaluate the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response in four case studies: China, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK. Through a rapid scoping of documentation of the gendered effects of the outbreak, it applies the matrix framework to analyse findings, identifying common themes across the case studies: financial discrimination, crisis in care, and unequal risks and secondary effects. Results point to transnational structural conditions which put women on the front lines of the pandemic at work and at home while denying them health, economic and personal security – effects that are exacerbated where racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequities. Given that women and people living at the intersections of multiple inequities are made additionally vulnerable by pandemic responses, intersectional feminist responses should be prioritised at the beginning of any crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The East Asian experience in tackling COVID-19 has been highly praised, but this high-level generalisation neglects variation in pandemic response measures adopted across countries as well as the socio-political factors that shaped them. This paper compares the early pandemic response in Singapore and Hong Kong, two Asian city-states of similar sizes, a shared history of SARS, and advanced medical systems. Although both were able to contain the virus, they did so using two very different approaches. Drawing upon data from a cross-national, probability sample Internet survey conducted in May 2020 as well as media and mobility data, we argue that the different approaches were the result of the relative strength of civil society vs. the state at the outset of the outbreak. In protest-ridden Hong Kong, low governmental trust bolstered civil society, which focused on self-mobilisation and community mutual-help. In Singapore, a state-led response model that marginalised civil society brought early success but failed to stem an outbreak among its segregated migrant population. Our findings show that an active civil society is pivotal to effective outbreak response and that trust in government may not have been as important as a factor in these contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lifecycle of COVID-19 pandemic curves requires timely decisions to protect public health while minimizing the impact to global economy. New models are necessary to predict the effect of mobility suppression/reactivation decisions at a global scale. This research presents an approach to understand such tensions by modeling air travel restrictions during the new coronavirus outbreak. The paper begins with an updated review on the impact of air mobility in infectious disease progression, followed by the adoption of complex networks based on semi-supervised statistical learning. The model can be used to (1) determine the early identification of infectious disease spread via air travel and (2) align the need to keep the economy working with open connections and the different dynamic of national pandemic curves. The approach takes advantage of open data and machine self-supervised statistical learning to develop knowledge networks visualization. Test cases using Hong Kong and Wuhan aerial mobility are discussed in the decisions to (1) restrict and (2) increase mobility. The approach may also be of governments use in their international cooperation policy and commercial companies that need to choose how to prioritize the re-opening of international trade routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been recognised, emerging research showed that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people may be additionally affected during the pandemic. This paper adds to the understanding of the experiences of LGB people during the pandemic with a focus on Hong Kong, where issues of space significantly influence LGB people's lives in this city with high population density. As part of a larger community study of LGB lives in Hong Kong, COVID-19-related impact on 434 Chinese-speaking LGB people was explored. Data collection was conducted from 20 May to 30 June 2020. Inductive thematic analysis of the open-text response survey data found that the LGB participants described both negative and positive impacts brought by COVID-19. Such impacts could be dimensionalised into those related to personal space and privacy, romantic and sexual space, and community space. It was also found that the experiences of COVID-19 among LGB people in Hong Kong were intersectional, along the lines of living arrangement and relationship status. Such findings make unique contributions to the emerging literature. First, there needs to be a more nuanced understanding of sexual minority individuals' experiences during COVID-19 across cultural contexts. Second, COVID-19 was described as having brought positive impact in addition to its widely known negative impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, all parts of the world are hit hard by COVID-19. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the territory of Hong Kong was announced on January 23, 2020. Since then, oculoplastic surgeons in Hong Kong have been taking every measure to protect all healthcare workers and patients from contracting the disease. This paper aims to share the experiences of and measures taken by local oculoplastic surgeons in combating COVID-19. Three main aspects are discussed, namely clinical, administrative, and training and educational. We hope our experiences would provide reference to fellow oculoplastic colleagues in other parts of the world in fighting this COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research selects art museums in four cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) region for relevant research, namely Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen, which are important representatives of the artistic, cultural, economic and technological development of the GBA. It examines the digital technology strategies used by six selected art museums within the four GBA cities to promote the co-development of collections, exhibitions and audience engagement. The objective of the study has been approached through the following research question: How are art museums using digital technology to improve the relationship among collections, exhibitions and audience engagement from the perspective of online exhibitions? In this article, online exhibitions are seen as an invaluable virtual platform for art museums to display art to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. The necessity for art museums to use digital technology to develop online exhibitions in the face of the plight of the COVID-19 pandemic is first introduced in this article. It then addresses how online exhibitions and online technologies in art museums have influenced the development of collections from offline to online, as well as how to further strengthen the relationship between collections, exhibitions and the audience. Some of the key challenges for art museums in developing online exhibitions using digital technology are also mentioned, and possible future developments of online exhibitions in art museums are discussed. At the same time, there is a need to consider the issues faced by art museums in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as they continue to use digital technology to develop collections, exhibitions and audiences in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2019 and 2020, Hong Kong faced a mental health crisis due to the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill social movement and the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored post-traumatic growth (PTG) in young adults in Hong Kong who experienced these challenges. We focused on two goal-pursuing styles, tenacious goal pursuit (TGP) and flexible goal adjustment (FGA), and their impact on cognitive processes related to PTG. Our findings revealed that high FGA, coupled with a greater perceived impact of the social movement, led to increased reflective rumination and subsequently higher levels of PTG. These results emphasize the significance of FGA and the perceived impact of the social movement in promoting constructive cognitive processes and PTG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the pandemic of COVID-19 Hong Kong lead one of the world's longest and most stringent quarantine measures. To examine cross-sectionally (i) the relationship between the duration of mandatory hotel quarantine and mental health outcomes; (ii) whether indirect contact with nature and lifestyle factors (i.e. diet, sleep, exercises, social support, and sense of meaning), mitigated this relationship. A group of 248 participants under 14 or 21-d mandatory hotel quarantine in Hong Kong completed an online questionnaire that included quarantine and lifestyle-related questions, as well as mental health outcome measures. For those under a 21-d quarantine, there was a significant effect of the week of quarantine on the level of depressive symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-4), which peaked in Week 2. Worse quality of sleep, a lower sense of meaning, and a longer set (but not completed) duration of quarantine were predictors of worse mental health outcomes. The positive relationship between the day of quarantine and the level of perceived stress was moderated by the indirect contact with nature. The results shed light on the potential negative impact of prolonged periods of quarantine on mental health outcomes and the possible protective factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to other settings, COVID-19 infection and death rates in Hong Kong were very low until 2022, due to top-down interventions (e.g. quarantines, 'mask mandates') and community activation. However, in addition to these epidemiological circumstances, Hong Kong has also undergone significant social and political change stemming from the social movement beginning in 2019 through the enacting, and aftermath, of the National Security Law. We draw on registered birth and marriage data from 2015 through 2021 to explore how fertility and nuptiality changed after the social movement followed by the first four waves of the COVID pandemic. We describe how fertility and marriage rates have changed in Hong Kong and to what extent the changes are associated with the social movement and the COVID pandemic. We further disaggregate the fertility and nuptiality trends by Hong Kong-born and non-Hong Kong-born population, with a specific focus on migrants from the Mainland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by communication infrastructure theory and social support theory, this study scrutinizes how the storytelling networks of marginalized communities, particularly migrant domestic workers (MDWs), provided social support amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Data obtained from in-depth interviews with 32 Indonesian MDWs in Hong Kong revealed that the community storytelling networks, comprising interpersonal relationships, community organizations, and media outlets, played an essential role in assisting the coping efforts of MDWs during the pandemic. These storytelling networks offered various types of social support, including informational, emotional, and instrumental or tangible assistance. However, these connections to the storytelling networks were also sources of the spread of misinformation. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we surveyed low-income elderly people in Hong Kong and their family or friends to test a dual-path model with which we identified how misinformation in the media reached elderly people and how the elderly people's perception and acceptance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines were influenced. The findings suggest that elderly people's own exposure to erroneous information regarding vaccines and COVID-19 in the media was positively associated with their misperceptions. In addition, their family or friends, who also received misinformation from the media, were found to relay the misleading or erroneous information to the elderly people, indicating a two-step flow of media influence. While previous studies have predominantly focused on the direct influence of misinformation in the media, our study suggests that social influence can also mediate the influence of misinformation in the media and negatively impacts elderly people's perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study examined the impact of mass protests on various Hong Kong individuals. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic data collected through extensive interviews and social media, the impacts of mass protests on social relationships, economic development, and mental and physical health of Hong Kong students, parents, and educators are discussed. Answers pertaining to why Hong Kong university students participated in mass protests and how their parents and teachers responded to their participation are found by examining their rationales for joining mass protests and the possible consequences they are facing in the present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative research examined Hong Kong social workers' perceptions of the usefulness and ease of adopting information and communication technology (ICT) in their practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Invitations to participate in this research were sent to various social welfare agencies, resulting in the recruitment of 23 social workers with different work experiences. In-depth interviews followed by thematic analysis were employed to explore participants' experiences of using ICT in their practice during the pandemic and factors influencing their readiness to use ICT. The results showed that various factors influenced social workers' perceptions of the usefulness and ease of using ICT, including digital service output quality, shared expectations and subjective norms, technology self-efficacy, and organizational support. The research further identified ethical considerations that posed challenges to ICT utilization. The research provides insights into social work management regarding the strategies of enhancing social workers' motivation and acceptance of utilizing ICT. Recommendations on future development and research of digital social work services were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences of participants in disrupted study abroad (SA) programs have been largely overlooked in the literature, especially when it comes to experiences outside the norm. To fill this gap, this research explores the experience of an Australian university student taking part in an exchange program in Hong Kong (HK) during a turbulent period when HK was under sociopolitical tension, which was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We tracked the student's experiences over six months through five monthly reflective journals and a postprogram interview. The qualitative data were analysed using a narrative approach, and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) framework was adopted to interpret the results. The student's narrative demonstrated a progressive story structure: although it was a special historical time when mobility to HK was undesirable, the participant counterintuitively perceived HK as an ideal location for his future career because of his SA experience. Framed by EST, the study discusses the individual's development in relation to a multilevel SA ecology (micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystems) and the student's agentic responses at the individual level. The study offers policy and practical implications for multicultural education, particularly in the post-COVID era, when cross-border mobility has been facing unprecedented challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emphasis of risk has been recognized as a crucial component to effective and successful policy compliance amidst a crisis. Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the impact of risk may fluctuate with the severity of the prolonged pandemic, and that the public consider not only public health factors when they choose but also whether to follow a COVID-19-related policy, perceived risk may not always lead to policy compliance. Two cross-sectional online surveys (during almost zero case period in late April to May, 2020 (Wave 2) and during the biggest outbreak in July, 2020 (Wave 3)) with convenient sampling were conducted to examine the dichotomous role of perceived severity and perceived susceptibility in influencing policy compliance in Hong Kong. A total of 1816 responses from local adults were collected (Wave 2: N = 564; Female % = 69.7%; Mean age = 39.4; Wave 3: N = 1252; Female %=68.8%; Mean age = 40.2). Although policy compliance is found to increase with the scale of the outbreak, results from path analyses showed that perceived susceptibility and perceived severity have an indirect role in policy complying behaviour when the objective risk is low. Risk variables, including attitude, knowledge, benefit and trust, have directly shaped policy compliance. More importantly, perceived severity boosts policy compliance but perceived susceptibility was associated with disobedience to public health policies. Meanwhile, Hong Kong citizens have a selective and conscious preference regarding the stringency of public health policy: They welcome more law and order, with increasing magnitude of penalty, but reject lockdown measures such as a curfew. Regression results implied that demography had a mild contribution to the acceptance of public health policies, with only the female gender being statistically related to higher policy acceptance. The findings of this study imply that boosting attitude, knowledge, benefit and trust would come more directly helpful in promoting public health policy compliance than emphasizing on risks alone. This study calls for further reflection on the traditional role of risk, especially perceived susceptibility, in mobilizing policy compliance to COVID-19-related measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the increased importance of identifying the critical Policy Driving Forces (PDFs) to uptake Modular integrated Construction (MiC) practices in Hong Kong (HK), this study aims to identify and examine the critical PDFs associated with MiC projects in HK from the perspective of industry experts. After drawing on the plentiful relevant literature and conducting a pilot study, an expert opinion survey was conducted to gather the necessary data for this study. The collected data were analysed using relevant significance analysis and factor analysis to identify critical PDFs and appropriate groupings. The results revealed 23 critical PDFs under seven critical components in three stages of the MiC process. Regulative PDFs show the highest criticality for up-taking the MiC in the initiation and planning and design phases, while Greater Bay Area development PDFs are critical in the construction phase. The PDF related to the COVID-19 pandemic is the only critical PDF that appeared in all three stages. As the first study that explores PDFs for MiC uptake throughout all project phases, this study contributes substantially to theory and practice while better informing policymakers on how to initiate MiC-related policies to boost MiC practice in HK, where MiC is achieving greater prominence in application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various topics within the issue, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social workers in Australia, posttraumatic growth (PTG), and the preparedness of social workers in Israeli hospitals for the next pandemic.

This study investigated how Hong Kong's community centers for older people faced challenges and delivered services amid the Covid-19 pandemic. According to experiences of 110 health and social care workers who completed an electronic questionnaire, the provision of center-based services of most respondents were severely affected. Some of them launched online services but faced various constraints such as staff members' limited knowledge, insufficient technical support and service users' lacking required devices and poor internet connection. Hong Kong's experience shows that digital literacy needs to be embedded into the future health and social care training curriculum. Also, effective digital communication training packages need to be developed with the involvement of service users. Moreover, innovative approaches have become imperative for health and social care practitioners to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies can investigate the impact of Covid-19 from the perspective of older respondents and on various types of social services. Also, qualitative research methods can be adopted to collect rich data for deeper understandings on the difficulties of both service providers and users on delivering and receiving internet-based health and welfare services. In short, future studies can examine service users' views on the impact of Covid-19 by using in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects on many aspects of our everyday lives. Changes have also been apparent in the field of teaching since most teaching now has to be carried out online. Despite its drawbacks, this forced change to online instruction and learning has helped me reflect on my teaching. Based on my experience teaching literature at a university in Hong Kong, this article aims to highlight the lessons learned from the transformation caused by the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst all jurisdictions, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China has been one of the most effective in limiting cases of COVID-19, despite being one of the first places to be affected by the pandemic in early 2020. In the months since the first case was confirmed, COVID-19 has affected all aspects of Hong Kong society, including the higher education sector. In this collective reflective essay, we describe the effects of these unexpected external events on academics' lives and the responses of higher education institutions. Specifically, we address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics, their professional relationships, institutional frameworks, and Hong Kong's higher education sector as a whole. We conclude that the most significant effect of the pandemic is uncertainty, together with new realities expressed in sayings such as 'living with Zoom, learning from webinars'; 'you will be informed "in due course"', stay calm "until further notice"'; and 'people are stuck, but business is on steroids'. The essay further describes a three-pronged institutional reaction to the pandemic, focused on control, support, and positioning. It concludes with critical views on the way 'useful' knowledge in today's higher education is defined and how concepts and practices have been challenged during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]