Hong Kong considers even tighter virus rules as it battles Covid surge

hong Kong

HONG Kong is considering stricter social-distancing measures and preparing for a universal testing push to try to curtail an escalating virus outbreak that's straining its health infrastructure.

The city reported 7,533 new cases on Monday (Feb 21), as well as 13 deaths that included an 11-month-old girl. Most of the baby's immediate family tested positive with rapid antigen tests, and her death has been referred to the coroner.

Officials don't plan to reopen gyms and beauty parlors, which were set to resume operations on Feb 24, and they haven't made a decision on hair salons, Sing Tao reported, citing people it didn't identify. Patrons may be capped at two per table for so-called category D restaurants, it said.

The city is also ramping up preparations for the mandatory testing of all residents, a tactic used regularly in mainland China to contain outbreaks, but which would be resource-intensive at an unprecedented scale for the financial hub.

"We have to closely look at the situation in the next week or two to decide how to contain it," Edwin Tsui, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, said at a briefing on Sunday. Among measures under consideration are having police perform checks on people's vaccination status in shopping malls and further limiting dining-in at restaurants, he said.

The comments come ahead of the rollout of a vaccine pass on Thursday, which will see entry to a range of venues limited to those who are vaccinated. The current wave of infections, by far the most severe of the pandemic, is testing Hong Kong's zero-tolerance approach to the virus. Scenes of elderly patients lying on gurneys in the street because hospitals have no more space and frightened residents flooding emergency rooms have shocked the city, and drawn an unusually direct intervention from China's President Xi Jinping. Health authorities said Monday that they're in talks with private hospitals to take in some patients, such as those recovering from surgery.

"Our measures, looking back, were not tough enough, not thought out enough," Regina Ip, a lawmaker and member of Chief Executive Carrie Lam's Executive Council, said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Monday.

She said she expects the situation to be brought under control in about two months, ahead of the chief executive election which will now be held on May 8.

"We need to align our measures much more with the mainland," Ip said, highlighting contact tracing, detection, and treatment.

"We must move toward adopting a health code, which can be aligned with the mainland health code so that we can reopen with mainland China."

Hong Kong's former head of police public relations John Tse will take a leading role in the Security Bureau's anti-epidemic task force, the South China Morning Post reported, citing people it didn't identify.

Security Secretary Chris Tang is overseeing the operation of community isolation facilities, and more than 1,000 retired disciplined-services officers have been recruited to staff them, the report said. BLOOMBERG