Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam previously ruled out a lockdown of the city and ordered all 7.4 million residents to get tested in March. But health official Sophia Chan said on Monday that this option was possible.
Asked on the radio to find out if confinement was still excluded, she replied: “No. We are still in discussion”. “From a public health perspective, to get the best effect from mandatory universal screening, we need to reduce the movement of people to some degree,” she added. “Residents should stay at home or avoid going out as much as possible.”
The announcement adds new uncertainties for residents and businesses in a city plagued by chaos that was more familiar at the start of the pandemic.
Flaws in the health system
Two years of strict ‘zero covid’ policies largely contained the coronavirus early in the pandemic, but the arrival of the highly transmissible Omicron variant exposed the flaws in the city’s healthcare system and the lack preparedness for a mass epidemic.
Hong Kong reported 26,000 new infections and 83 deaths on Sunday alone. Prior to the current wave, the city had only recorded 12,000 cases since the start of the pandemic.
Hospitals have been strained for several weeks and officials revealed on Sunday that bodies were piling up in hospitals because morgues were full. Hong Kong’s seven-day average death rate is currently around eight per million people. For comparison, it is 1.80 in the UK and 1.36 in Singapore.
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