Hong Kong to lock down city for mass testing

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong is planning to enforce a lockdown of the city to ensure a mandatory Covid-19 testing drive planned for this month is effective, Sing Tao Daily reported.

Testing of the financial hub's 7.4 million people will start after Mar 17, the newspaper reported, citing people it didn't identify.

Officials are aiming to test the whole city 3 times over 9 days, with a stay-at-home order in place to maximise the impact, the report said. Hong Kong's core financial services including the operations of the stock exchange and Covid vaccination programme will continue during the testing period, according to the report. Officials are still working out the details, Sing Tao said.

Residents will still be allowed to leave their homes to buy necessities like food during the lockdown, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported, citing unidentified people.

After 2 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 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 under-vaccinated 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.

Still, 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 so-called 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 2 sides told Bloomberg News last week. But officials have been reluctant given the impact it would have on the densely populated city. China was the first place in the world to impose a Covid lockdown when it sealed off Wuhan in early 2020, and it has been deploying the tactic again in recent months as virus flare-ups become more common.

Concern Hong Kong could be locked down and that families could be separated if they test positive in the mass testing drive is fuelling an exodus from the territory, with departures hitting a record in the week ending Feb 27, according to the latest data from the Hong Kong Immigration department. BLOOMBERG