For months, opposition politicians urged Hong Kong to be tough on visitors from the mainland to keep the virus out.

Over recent months, more than 200,000 people coming from China were quarantined in this city, more than all other groups put together.

And the outcome? The statistics were revealed on Friday: not a single case of the coronavirus emerged from people quarantined from China.

But 799 confirmed cases did come from other quarantined travelers to Hong Kong, with the majority from (in order) the UK, Pakistan, India, the Philippines and the United States.

* * *

BBC reporters covering the Belarus protests last week interviewed a "photojournalist" named Witold Dobrowolski.

Recognize the name?

Reader Laura Ryzhaya, a Hong Kong writer and academic, did.

Dobrowolski is a notorious far-right activist from Poland who took part in the Hong Kong riots last year, one of a number of rather scary Eastern Europeans who blur activism, journalism and government toppling.

What a coincidence that he's at so many protests.

* * *

Hong Kong engineers are rejoicing after our Supreme Leader Carrie Lam signed off on the construction of this city's second super-escalator project, from Fortress Hill MTR to Braemar Hill.

There are seven schools and a university at the top of the hill causing legendary traffic jams. This reporter was once stuck halfway up the hill for so long that I turned to my children and said: "We live here now."

* * *

So many people stare at their phones in the middle of the road that our city should copy this California road sign, says a motorist from Sai Kung.

* * *

UK politician Christine Jardine yesterday distributed a video of herself protesting outside her local Chinese embassy. "We've had yet more reports of persecution of Wee-ja Muslims," she said.

It looks like her research didn't extend to getting the name right.

* * *

Reader Don Knowles said Westerners' knowledge about China is not great, as shown by a conversation he had in a shoe store in South Carolina.

DON: "We live in Hong Kong."

SHOESELLER: "Oh, they all wear flip-flops there, don't they?"

* * *

The conversation reminded Ender Lee of an error during the Oscars broadcast which stole Hong Kong's moment of glory.

"William Monahan based his screenplay about Boston mobsters on the Japanese film Infernal Affairs," the announcer said.

Ouch.

* * *

There was a howl of horror from thousands of children on Thursday when a serious typhoon failed to cause schools to close.

They would wail even louder if they heard that school managers have decided that online lessons are going to be made a permanent alternative, so that even after Covid-19, the weather will never again equal a day off. RIP, typhoon holidays.

* * *

I suspect many people identify with this observation by Tracy Lynn via Twitter: "I have no clue what's open or closed anymore. I just walk towards automatic doors, and if my face hits the glass I turn around and go home."

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Maybe we got tough with the wrong people