The Young Reporter

More school children have developed short-sightedness and the condition of those who are already myopic has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, a study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong has found.   Researchers say the suspension of face-to-face classes was the cause of the “myopia boom” as children are spending more time indoors and on the screens of electronic gadgets.   The research team from the university’s Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences compared the vision development of 709 children between the ages of six and eight from December 2019 to January 2020 (COVID-19 cohort) and that of another 1,084 children of the same ages who were the subject of a three-year vision study before January 2020 (the control group).   It found that almost 30% of the COVID-19 cohort developed myopia, and that the figure was 2.5 times higher than the 12% for the control group.   The study noted that the life mode of children before and after the COVID-19 pandemic changed, with the COVID-19 cohort spending just 24 minutes outdoors on average per day, or less than one-third of the control group’s 75 minutes.   Besides, while the control group spent just 2.5 hours staring at the screens of electronic gadgets on average per day, the COVID-19 cohort were spending as much as seven hours.   Speaking at a press conference on the study, 8-year-old Nicole Leung said she used to spend only half an hour a day doing homework, but during the pandemic she spent three to four hours.   "Before the pandemic, there were about two hours of outdoor activities a day, but now there are almost no outdoor activities during the weekdays, and few on weekends," she said.   Nicole's mother, who would only be identified as Jessica, said Nicole’s myopia worsened from …

Hong Kong needs more transitional housing and more government support in helping families move from poor living conditions to public rental homes, a collection of non-government organizations that promote housing issues said during a news conference today.    The Concerning Grassroots' Housing Rights Alliance, created in mid-2010 and composed of various NGOs and neighborhood committees, put forward several suggestions to improve the city’s current difficult housing situation and called on the government to provide more assistance.   "We suggest that the government provide appropriate support to organizations interested in applying for land for transitional housing projects," said Mr. Chow Wai Hung, a representative of the alliance. "The government can also refer to the 'government-led' transitional housing principle implemented in other countries and take the initiative to find and manage land, so as to shorten the time for the completion of social housing and provide more units."   Currently there are 1,306 completed transitional housing flats in Hong Kong. According to a government projection the number of available flats will increase to 15,000 before 2023. The average waiting time for public housing is more than five years with about 250,000 applicants on a waiting list. There are nearly 220,000 people living in subdivided housing in Hong Kong.   Following Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s announcement last month of the 2021 Policy Address Public Consultation, during which she implored, “I sincerely invite members of the public to give their views on the 2021 Policy Address so that we can map out the future of Hong Kong together,” the alliance conducted a survey on transitional housing from July 29 to Aug. 16, releasing some results of the survey during the news conference.   Among the 218 respondents, nearly 90% said they are waiting for public housing. More than 60% of the respondents …