HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said her administration would announce new Covid-19 restrictions later Tuesday (Feb 8) and warned that the city’s health system was “on the brink”.
Mrs Lam pleaded with residents not to go out, even as she said the government must take into account the general tolerance of the public when formulating policy.
“We need your support, we need your cooperation,” Mrs Lam told the city’s residents at a regular news briefing Tuesday morning. “Please stay at home.”
Hong Kong reported a record number of coronavirus infections on Monday, with cases doubling every three days to more than 600 currently.
The city will report more than 620 confirmed cases on Tuesday, and has also found a further 400 preliminary cases, local media reported.
Mrs Lam said Hong Kong would stick to a “dynamic zero” Covid-19 strategy to contain the coronavirus as the authorities face their biggest test yet to control a record number of infections.
For now, she said, the best option was to adhere to the “dynamic zero” strategy employed by mainland China to suppress all coronavirus outbreaks as soon as possible.
“We should contain the spread of the virus as much and as fast as possible,” she said.
With hundreds of people testing positive each day, the city’s meticulous contact-tracing and isolation measures have come under severe strain, with long lineups for testing and a constantly shifting approach to quarantine facilities.
The city is expected to return to some of its strictest anti-virus measures by limiting public gatherings to two people, and the number of restaurant patrons to two per table, Sing Tao reported earlier.
Hong Kong’s stringent coronavirus policies have turned the once top global travel and business hub into one of the world’s most isolated major cities.
The economic and psychological tolls from the hardline approach are rapidly rising, with measures becoming more draconian than those first implemented at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Flights are down around 90 per cent, schools, playgrounds, gyms as well as most other venues are shut. Restaurants close at 6pm, while most people, including the majority of civil servants, are working from home.
Government quarantine facilities are also nearing their maximum as the authorities struggle to keep up with their rigid contact tracing scheme.
Many health experts have said the city’s current strategy of shutting itself off as the rest of the world shifts to living with coronavirus, is unsustainable.
Doctors say mental health is suffering, particularly in families where people are earning less, or children cannot go to school due to the restrictions.
The official Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Monday that a “dynamic zero infection” strategy is the scientific option for Hong Kong.
Residents on Monday crowded supermarkets and neighbourhood fresh food markets to stock up on vegetables, noodles and other necessities.
Hong Kong imports 90 per cent of its food supplies, with the mainland its most important source, especially for fresh food. Consumers have already seen a shortage of some foreign imported goods, including premium seafood, due to stringent flight restrictions.
The government tried to assuage worries of a shortage of food from the mainland after some cross-border truck drivers tested positive for the coronavirus. Several drivers have been forced to isolate but overall fresh food supplies “remained stable”, despite a drop in supply of vegetables to certain markets, it said on Sunday.
