Hong Kong authorities have ordered some 10,000 residents to stay in their homes until they are tested there for the corona virus. These are residents of a densely populated and relatively poor neighborhood that has been hit by an outbreak.
The intention is that everyone is tested within 48 hours. The residents of the neighborhood are allowed to leave their homes if the test result turns out to be negative.
It is the first time that Hong Kong has instituted a lockdown. It was one of the first places where the virus was diagnosed at the beginning of last year, but the city has remained relatively mildly affected since then.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said last summer that he would do everything he could to prevent “extreme measures” such as a lockdown. However, the total number of infections in Hong Kong has almost doubled in the last two months. The official number of infections is now at almost 10,000, more than 7 million inhabitants.
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