Hong Kong orders thousands to stay home as crisis deepens
Lankan health minister tests positive; Wuhan marks a year since lockdown; WHO says ‘it is too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where COVID-19 started’
Thousands of Hong Kongers were ordered to stay in their homes on Saturday for the city’s first coronavirus lockdown as authorities batle an outbreak in one of its poorest and most densely packed districts.
The order bans about 10,000 people living inside multiple housing blocks within the neighbourhood of Jordan from leaving their apartments until all those in the area had been tested.
Officials said they planned to screen everyone inside the designated zone within 48 hours “in order to achieve the goal of zero cases in the district.” “Residents will have to stay at their premises to avoid cross-infection until they get their test results,” health minister Sophia Chan told reporters on Saturday.
The government had deployed over 3,000 staff to enforce the lockdown, which covers about 150 housing blocks.
Residents were seen lining up for testing at more than 50 mobile specimen collection vehicles parked in the area and for basic daily supplies provided by the government.
By lunchtime on Saturday, around 3,000 people in the area had been tested.
Hong Kong was one of the first places to be struck by the coronavirus ater it spilled out of central China.
It has recorded just over 10,000 infections with some 170 deaths by imposing effective but economically punishing social distancing measures for much of the last year.
The district of Jordan recorded 162 confirmed cases from the beginning of this year to January 20.
On Saturday, the city recorded 81 infections, of which 21 were from Yau Tsim Mong area where the restricted district is located.
The looming restrictions were leaked to the city’s local media on Friday but there was no official statement from the government until Saturday morning once the lockdown had come in overnight.
Some media reported seeing residents leave the area ahead of the midnight deadline while others said locals were frustrated by the lack of clear information.
Authorities said people who were not in the restricted area at the time but had stayed in it for more than two hours in the past 14 days must undergo compulsory testing before midnight on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Chinese city of Wuhan marked one year since the start of its traumatic 76-day coronavirus lockdown on Saturday.
Traffic hummed, sidewalks bustled, and citizens packed parks and public transport in Wuhan, underscoring the scale of the recovery in the metropolis of 11 million where the pathogen first emerged before going global.
In Wuhan, a team of World Health organisation (WHO) experts was still in hotel quarantine ahead of a mission to investigate the source of the virus, and the body said it was too early to conclude whether the pandemic actually started there.
“All hypotheses are on the table,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference in Geneva.
“And it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started, either within or without China.” Thailand on
Saturday reported 198 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total number of infections to 13,302 since the outbreak began last year.
The new cases included 18 imported cases and one additional death, taking the total number of coronavirus-related fatalities to 72, a COVID-19 taskforce said.
Malaysia health authorities reported 4,275 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the highest daily infections so far, raising the total number of confirmed cases to 180,455.
The Southeast Asian country also reported seven new fatalities, bringing the total number of deaths to 667. Sri Lanka’s health minister, who publicly endorsed sorcery and magic potions to stop surging coronavirus infections in the island, has tested positive and will self-isolate, officials said on Saturday.
Pavithra Wanniarachchi had publicly consumed and endorsed a magic potion, later revealed to contain honey and nutmeg, manufactured by a sorcerer who claimed it worked as a life-long inoculation against the virus.