Hong Kong battles wave of Covid-19 infections
Fears that China will impose a citywide lockdown on Hong Kong has led to panic buying that has cleared supermarket shelves and led to long queues outside banks and pharmacies, says the Financial Times. Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam has said there will be a “limited lockdown” while all 7.4 million of Hong Kong’s residents are tested three times this month. Lam has denied harsher measures will be introduced, but with a “surge in infections” overwhelming the healthcare system, experts warn draconian policies will be “inevitable” if Hong Kong is to keep following China’s “zero-Covid policy”.
Hong Kong is currently one of the last places in the world still trying to eliminate the disease as much of the rest of the world opts to live with the highly infectious but milder Omicron variant, says Shirley Zhao on Bloomberg. Until now, it has been able to do this with “harsh border restrictions and socialdistancing rules”. But with Omicron breaking through and the authorities failing to prioritise vaccinating its older people, Hong Kong is coming under increasing pressure from Beijing to impose a full lockdown, even though this could “trigger social turmoil” and hit the economy.
Indeed, even existing measures are “crippling many service industries”, says Vivian Wang in The New York Times, and the brunt is being felt by the most vulnerable. Migrant domestic workers face the sack and homelessness if they get sick. Panic buying has led to soaring food prices. Government relief, in the form of digital vouchers, is puny. “Even residents who have avoided infection are straining under the pandemic’s economic burden.”