One of the fundamentally broken things about Hong Kong's current Covid situation is that it has neither the scale/labor force/compliance of the mainland to do a draconian lockdown, nor the democratic accountability to ensure balanced, reasonable public health measures. If HK were China (bigger apartments, more government employees, more community-level Party-affiliated 'volunteers' ensuring monitoring/compliance, less concern about maintaining fig leaf of laissez fair guiding ideology), they could have nipped this outbreak before it surged.

After covering India's foreign ministry for a few years, I'm a) not at all surprised that India has taken a non-position as the West unites against Russia, b) very accustomed to seeing India's stance on global events being: how can we get our people out as quickly as possible India has a complicated history as a supposedly non-aligned nation, but also buys weapons from Russia and lives in a different neighborhood than most countries allying with US on coordinated sanctions. Also, it's foreign policy tends to be very neighborhood-specific.

A thread on vaccine hesitancy in Hong Kong, a city fortunate enough to have handled the pandemic relatively skillfully from the outset and also procured enough vaccines for its entire pop of around 7.5m. But it's now struggling for several reasons.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… The city was always going to struggle with vaccine hesitancy. One CUHK survey found only 37% of adults would get the jab; while more recent HKU polling has shown it overs around 50%, lower than other jurisdictions in Asia/globally -- as well as below threshold for herd immunity.

THREAD: In Hong Kong, we've all been isolating/social-distancing for nearly two months. It wasn't perfect by any means. But Hong Kong started early and has so far managed to contain cases to around ~150, despite incredible exposure to China.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Many of us have been hoping other countries would take similar measures quickly, but have instead watched as developed countries downplayed the threat and delayed responses until it was too late. It's been surreal watching D.C. and Europe mishandle this.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Thread:

A new report on global air pollution show vast improvements in China, while Indian cities remain the world's most polluted. New Delhi is the world's worst capital.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Although Indian cities saw a dip between 2018-19, report authors @MyAirVisual say that's a result of India's dramatic economic slowdown (~8%+ GDP growth cratered to ~5%), and not a sign that new policies (including NCAP) have begun to have an impact.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Spoke to several Hong Kong bankers, finance and insurance folks about why they came out to protest today. Almost all said police violence this week. Several mentioned violent scenes at CUHK. Said they wanted to show support for students on the front lines. Our rolling update on Hong Kong is here: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

A thread on India's election, as we all continue to digest Modi's resounding victory. The sheer scale of the mandate, and its confident reception by the BJP, speak to where India is headed: Further to the Right.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… India's verdict has obviously validated Modi's winning formula, which I believe is a potent mix of incremental and sometimes questionable economic reform, sprawling welfare programs for the poor, and populist appeals based on nationalism and religion.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…