Hong Kong's Covid-19 death rate per million hits highest in world

Hong Kong's COVID-19 death rate per million has hit the highest in the world, with the elderly, many of whom were unvaccinated, becoming the prime victim of infection.

As of March 6, the city recorded 25.5 new deaths per million people over a seven-day moving average, according to the figures shown by the scientific online publication, Our World in Data in collaboration with Oxford University researchers.

The figure is more than twice that of Latvia's 9.26, six times that of 4.29 in the United States, and far more than Singapore's 1.86. Australia's was 1.41, Japan's, 1.68, and South Korea's, 2.89, Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times reported on Wednesday [local time].

The case fatality rate in Hong Kong touched 0.4 per cent, higher than South Korea's 0.2 per cent, Australia's 0.16 per cent and Singapore's 0.13 per cent.

Hong Kong government showed the data on Tuesday that over 2,300 people had died since the end of December when the latest Covid-19 surge occurred. The data also stated that about 70 per cent were elder, aged 80 and above.

Despite the Hong Kong government's constant effort to vaccinate all the beneficiaries, slightly less than half of everyone under 80 years are still unvaccinated.

The city recorded over 42,000 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to over 5,39,000 cases with over 2,400 deaths.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam planned to conduct a mass test of the city's 7.4 million population next month, but there is still a possibility in the government's stance from the focus on mass testing and isolation to lowering deaths, The Straits Times citing the local media reported.

Meanwhile, people are suddenly witnessing a severely overstretched healthcare system, depicting China's unsuccessful 'zero-covid' policy.