Hong Kong: Having suffered from muscular dystrophy 14 years ago, Steven Yan had to sit in a wheelchair around the shops looking for masks, but often returned empty-handed.

Yan tried to find a place to sell a mask near his apartment but was successful only once last month. He lined up for 6 hours to get 5 free masks. "I'm exhausted," Yan said. "I didn't dare to move because I was afraid of losing my place."

In the past two weeks, every time stores in Hong Kong had new masks, toilet paper and disinfection products, residents rushed to queue to buy these scarce items. No one is given priority, including the disabled.

Yan, his wife and son have a total of 40 masks to use gradually. He restricted going out, including regular checkups. Public hospitals have stopped providing masks to visitors to save supplies for health workers in the fight against Covid-19. Hong Kong has detected 62 cases of nCoV so far, of which two have died.

"I had to wear a mask in the hospital, but now we can't buy it," Yan said, complaining that mask prices have skyrocketed in recent weeks.

Despite being one of the richest cities in the world, Hong Kong has a large gap between rich and poor and a "limited social safety net" (services provided to vulnerable people). Of the nearly 600,000 disabled people in the city, one third lives below the poverty line. About 200,000 people have to take care of them.

Lam Chun, 64, takes care of a 19-year-old nephew, has Pradar-Willis syndrome - a genetic disorder that makes people constantly feel hungry, often leading to diabetes and obesity. When she goes out to buy basic necessities, she makes her own cloth mask, although it has limited protection against nCoV.

"I always miss information about where to sell masks because I really don't know how to go online," Lam said. Many Hong Kong people know about pharmacies that replenish via Facebook or WhatsApp groups.

Both Yan and Lam said they received very little help from the local government. "It turned out that the government did nothing to protect people like us. I was extremely disappointed," Lam said. The Hong Kong Social Welfare Agency did not respond to a request for comment.

Responsibility is largely the responsibility of volunteers and charities. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam recently said 1.6 million masks will be given to local charities to give to the vulnerable.

Activist Joshua Wong, leader of the "umbrella" protests in 2014, said his party had imported 1.2 million masks from Honduras and would distribute them to the people.

More and more Hong Kong people are calling for special zone authorities to take measures to stabilize masks or regulate the amount of masks sold in a certain period of time to reduce the shortage and price.

In Taiwan, after the people rushed to buy and store masks, the island government ruled that each person could only buy two masks a week through a card-connected system. medical.

But in Hong Kong, officials have yet to intervene in the market. Yan has always been nervous in recent weeks. "People like me are more vulnerable in the face of illness," he said. "Today you hear my voice, but tomorrow, maybe you can only see my body."