HK rules out tighter virus curbs as death toll soars

HONG KONG • Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam yesterday said there were no plans to tighten strict social distancing measures as the city battles to contain a coronavirus surge that has overwhelmed its healthcare system amid soaring deaths.

Mrs Lam said there was limited room to tighten further, with the global financial hub having put in place the strictest measures since the pandemic started.

Gatherings of more than two people are banned, most venues including schools are shut, and masks are compulsory everywhere, even when exercising outdoors.

"The government has to be very careful before tightening social distancing measures further... with the need to consider the mental health of citizens," she told a daily briefing.

Mrs Lam said last week that the government had no timeframe for a compulsory mass testing of Hong Kong's 7.4 million residents.

The authorities reported 26,908 new infections yesterday with 249 deaths.

Hong Kong has recorded over 700,000 Covid-19 infections and about 4,200 deaths, most of them in the past three weeks.

The Chinese-ruled territory has followed mainland China's "dynamic zero" policy, which seeks to curb all outbreaks as soon as they occur, instead of trying to live with the virus.

Hong Kong's borders have been effectively sealed for two years, with few flights able to land and most transit passengers banned.

But deaths have spiked, particularly among its mostly unvaccinated elderly, with the city registering the most deaths per million people globally last week.

Mrs Lam's comments came after China reported a surge in new local Covid-19 cases on Sunday, more than triple the caseload of the previous day and the highest in about two years.

Some Chinese netizens took to social media platforms to express anger at Hong Kong, saying it had failed to control its outbreak and blaming it for the mainland's latest surge in infections.

"Shenzhen people have been scolding Hong Kong every day for the past month. It's very clear that it has caused so much trouble for others," one netizen wrote on Weibo. The sprawling city of Shenzhen lies on the mainland's border with Hong Kong.

REUTERS