By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-19 07:11:49 | Updated at 2025-01-19 10:47:47
3 hours ago
In this series of stories to mark five years since Hong Kong recorded its first Covid-19 case on January 22, 2020, the Post looks at how some residents’ lives changed and examines the city’s readiness for the next global pandemic.
Chloe Wang Kai-ying’s parents knew she had a delayed speech condition, but the child was practically mute when she started primary school in 2023.
Social distancing measures through the Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020, when she was three years old, kept her mostly at home, attending kindergarten online and missing her speech therapy sessions.
Housewife Cecilia Wong Chung-suen said her daughter’s language development worsened during the pandemic, when she would only talk to herself.
“She would keep making baby sounds I could not understand,” she recalled.
Although Chloe’s regular therapy resumed after the pandemic, she still has trouble communicating in school.
