China coronavirus: Hong Kong scrambles to roll out containment plan stopping short of total closure, with cuts on cross-border travel and reduced transport services with mainland

Hong Kong will drastically reduce cross-border travel with the rest of China as it adopts tougher measures to contain the spread of the deadly Wuhan coronavirus, starting with the shutdown of the two railways and suspension of new visas to individual mainland tourists.

Flights to and from the mainland would be cut by half and cross-border bus services would also be reduced, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced on Tuesday as she spelled out a new containment strategy that stopped short of a total closure of the city’s borders demanded by legislators from across the political spectrum.

The government also asked all its employees, except for those providing essential and emergency services, to start working from home – while more private companies offered the same option to their staff.

But even as the death toll climbed above 100 and more than 1,770 new cases were reported across the mainland on Tuesday, infectious disease experts in Hong Kong raised a glimmer of hope, revealing they were on their way to developing a vaccine to fight the virus that has already hit more than 4,000 people globally.