By: Karmen LiEdited by: Jayde Cheung

More than 20 students queue up at the residential halls after Hong Kong Baptist University requires the LeaveHomeSafe mobile app, while lifting all other registration requirements and to set foot in the school.   Starting from Oct 8, students and staff need to scan the LeaveHomeSafe QR code before entering the university, according to the school's internal email delivered last Monday.  The new arrangement replaced the identity verification and health declaration that was used since the start of the pandemic. Vaccination requirement is lifted to attend face-to-face lessons, despite special premises including sport facilities and restaurants. The undergraduate housings firstly started the LeaveHomeSafe system last Friday, together with the existing identity verification system. Only blue code holders are permitted to the hall. “Last time I spent around 15 minutes to get in and then waiting for the elevator for an even longer time,” said Yernar Baltabay, a hall resident. “ People are forced to huddle together.”  The undergraduate halls offer 1,770 residences for full-time students. Residents have to record their entrance to the hall by scanning the LeaveHomeSafe QR code, and scan the vaccine pass by a mobile phone app at an appropriate distance and angle. The mobile phone cannot detect vaccine passes sometimes, according to Freya Chan, a hall resident. “Usually you will spend a long time getting the machine to read your QR code. If you move slowly, the queue will start behind you. That is extremely embarrassing,” she said. If the scanning does not work, students need to show their vaccine records to security guards in the hall for confirmation. “We are willing to better serve students using this system, but we now spend more time and energy checking the Vaccine Pass in person, because the machine is not working well,” said the security guard Chan Chung, who …

Debby Kwan Ho-kwan, 27, has been suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus for 10 years and stiff person syndrome for three years. Lupus is a form of immune system disorder that requires life-long medication and treatment, and stiff person syndrome leads to progressive muscle stiffness. Although Kwan can manage her own medical treatments like anticoagulant injection, her mother worries about a relapse of SLE. She frets over whether to seek hospitalisation if that happens, which may expose her daughter to COVID-19. The pressure builds when Kwan’s mother tries to understand new policies and chart new solutions almost every day.  “Sometimes, my mum suffers from insomnia. She has to take medication under such mental pressure,” said Kwan.  Since the start of the pandemic, caregivers like Kwan’s mother often prioritise the elderly, children and chronically ill patients over themselves. The restriction of face-to-face contacts during COVID-19 poses challenges to patient rehabilitation. Their caregivers often have to extend their working hours and more preparation work is required. “Many caregivers cannot withstand the pressure-cooker-like environment anymore,” said Zoe Chong Suk-yi, a dementia care planner working at Renascence Integrated Rehabilitation Centre. Chong and Alvin Shum Chun-kit have devoted their support to dementia patients and their caregivers throughout the pandemic.  Since the fifth wave of Covid outbreak, they have suspended on-site visits. Instead, they prepare extra cognitive training tools for home-training and help carers overcome technical issues when they engage with dementia sufferers during online training sessions because the patients often have a short attention span.  Dementia patients need a regular rehabilitation schedule in order to maintain their brain functions. They need constant cognitive therapy and practice, otherwise their conditions will deteriorate quickly, Chong explained.  “A number of them seemed to be more sluggish than before,” she said.  Before the fifth wave of pandemic struck Hong Kong, …