Hong Kong is planning to enforce a lockdown to ensure a mandatory COVID-19 testing drive planned for this month is effective, Sing Tao Daily and other domestic media reported Tuesday, as the worst virus outbreak in the city so far continues to snowball.
Testing of the financial hub¡¯s 7.4 million people will start after March 17, Sing Tao said, citing people it didn¡¯t identify.
Officials are aiming to test the whole city three times over nine days, with a stay-at-home order in place to maximize impact, Sing Tao and other media including the South China Morning Post reported. Hong Kong¡¯s core financial services including the operations of the stock exchange will continue during the testing period, according to the report. Officials were said to be still working out the details.
Residents will be allowed to leave their homes to buy necessities like food during the lockdown, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported along with the SCMP, both citing unidentified people. Exemptions will be made for some essential workers, but the government is still assessing how widespread the lockdown will be and whether to take moves such as halting public transport, according to the SCMP.
The Hong Kong government didn¡¯t immediately respond to queries on the reports.
After two years of limited outbreaks, Hong Kong is facing its toughest virus challenge of the pandemic, with the highly transmissible omicron variant testing its zero-tolerance, high intensity approach to keeping COVID-19 out. New cases have ballooned from a few hundred a day to more than 34,000 on Monday.
Deaths are also ticking higher, with the undervaccinated elderly population bearing the brunt as the virus spreads. Officials have already had to relinquish some of their key containment measures, including mandatory isolation for cases and detailed contact tracing, as the outbreak spirals out of control.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered Hong Kong last month to quell infections using ¡°all necessary measures.¡± The country is the last remaining adherent of the ¡°COVID zero¡± strategy, which successfully eliminated the virus in places like Australia, New Zealand and Singapore early on, but is now being abandoned in the face of the more contagious virus strains.
Mainland officials have been urging Hong Kong to consider a lockdown, people familiar with discussions between the two sides said last week. But officials have been reluctant given the impact it would have on the densely populated city.
¡°We need to seriously evaluate the level of restriction for citizens to go out because many people still have to provide services,¡± Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in Shenzhen on Monday. ¡°I believe that the number of civil servants to...
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