Crowded testing areas and no dinner for residents – chaotic scenes emerge inside Covid-hit public housing estates in Hong Kong
- Carrie Lam says dinners could not be arranged for residents of Kwai Chung Estate’s Ying Kwai House on Saturday evening because of lack of preparation time
- People inside Yat Kwai House say they were asked to line up for screening only to be later told authorities were not ready

Residents of the second Hong Kong public housing block imposed with a five-day lockdown order criticised the decision on Saturday as “hasty” and “cruel” after authorities said they could not supply dinner boxes for the first night.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yeut-ngor announced on Saturday evening that Ying Kwai House in the Kwai Chung Estate, the site’s second block, would undergo a lockdown as the number of infections in the cluster shot up to 105 confirmed and preliminary cases.
The government will arrange for door-to-door specimen collection for people with impaired mobility and the elderly, while others will have to undergo testing at booths downstairs.
The lockdown was imposed hours after a restricted compulsory testing order was issued at 4am, with many residents unable to leave to buy meals or necessities in the morning, while deliveries were also not allowed.
Officials have promised to deliver three meals a day and hand out packets of instant noodles, canned food and other necessities.
But Lam said that dinners could not be arranged for residents at Ying Kwai House because of a lack of preparation time.