https://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/Utility/GetImage.ashx?ImageID=b87bf5e4-7f3e-45ee-a122-76b798be9fe0&refreshStamp=0
Cell, or rather Room, 173-02, has no bars on the windows and in theory – but only in theory – you can open the door and exit, except that the option of exit is strictly forbidden without permission.
To enforce compliance an all-seeing CCTV surveillance camera keeps a careful eye on the doors. Next to it are loudspeakers poised to bark orders at inmates making an unauthorised exit or even timorously stepping outside the door. Hazmat-suited operatives emerge at remarkable speed to chastise offenders who peek out.
Welcome to the Penny’s Bay Quarantine Centre built at breakneck speed to accommodate 3,500 modular units and even more inmates in maximum discomfort. I know about the discomfort because until earlier this week I had the misfortune to be there.
In the spirit of what passes for irony, which few suspected lurked in the minds of the fine folk who designed these rooms, there is a running palm tree motif both inside the rooms and on the external walls. The hint of an exotic desert island is festooned on the aggressively dull buildings which are the hallmark of many government institutions.
It may be that this tantalising image is there to take inmates’ minds off their situation because there is much that requires taking the mind off. Most pressing is the reality of 24-hour confinement in a tiny space.
Then there are the lukewarm meals sloshing around in polystyrene boxes containing beige, or sometimes brown-coloured vile-tasting ingredients in a watery sauce topped by a greasy sheen of oil.
Inside the rooms harsh fluorescent lighting beams down remorselessly, while the equally harsh spot lighting outside combines to create a gulag-like ambience with Hong Kong characteristics.
https://hongkongfp.com/2021/02/27/steve-vines-does-hong-kongs-quarantine-centre-need-to-be-quite-so-hellish/