Coronavirus: Hong Kong social-distancing rules, higher prices put a damper on Lunar New Year festivities

Extended tough measures restricting evening dining at restaurants mean that Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners will all take place at home

Residents discouraged by surging food prices, say they will keep the gathering dinners relatively simple

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Residents shop at a wet market in Tsuen Wan on Saturday in preparation for the coming Lunar New Year. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 7:52pm, 29 Jan 2022Updated: 8:25pm, 29 Jan 2022

Hong Kong’s streets were awash with residents on Saturday buying food and flowers for the approaching Lunar New Year but Covid-19 social-distancing rules and higher prices put a damper on some of the festivities.

Ronald Tong, 48, an electrical mechanic who lives in Aberdeen, was out buying frozen pork ribs and Chinese cabbage for the traditional new year dinner. He said the price of pork ribs had doubled recently, while the price of the Chinese cabbage had gone up by HK$5 a catty.

Tong said he and his wife used to travel to mainland China to celebrate Lunar New Year with his mother-in-law, but with the long quarantine periods now required for cross-border travel, the couple decided to instead prepare a simple family dinner at home with their son.

“At first we found it hard to cope, not getting to see our loved ones, but as time went by, we got used to it,” he said.

The government reimposed a series of strict social-distancing measures in the city earlier this month amid a local outbreak of the more transmissible Omicron variant. City leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced on Thursday that the measures, including a ban on dine-in services in restaurants after 6pm, would be extended until February 17, citing the risk of a massive Covid-19 outbreak in the community.