Coronavirus: Hong Kong has no plans for ‘wholesale city lockdown’, leader Carrie Lam insists, as record 55,000 new Covid-19 cases confirmed
- Carrie Lam says government is still refining the details, and while there will be some form of plan ‘limiting individual movements’ a complete lockdown will not happen
- Sources say universal testing could begin on March 26 and last for nine days under a preliminary plan
Sources told the Post that universal testing could begin on March 26 and last for nine days under a preliminary plan of some form of lockdown, the parameters to which had yet to be agreed upon.
They also said differences on the timing of the screening had emerged between advisers from mainland China and their local counterparts, with the experts from the north believing it was better to do it earlier and the Hong Kong side suggesting the authorities wait until after the fifth wave had peaked.
“The government is still considering various options on how to take forward the compulsory universal testing,” a source said.
Widespread concern over the extent of the lockdown had sparked a wave of panic buying for food, medicines and basic necessities in recent days, with rumours flying that a large-scale or even citywide shutdown would be imposed later this month.
Speculation first grew on Monday morning when health minister Sophia Chan Siu-chee told a radio show the government would not rule out the possibility of a lockdown or curfew, in apparent contradiction to previous remarks by Lam.
Hong Kong food suppliers call on public to stop panic buying essentials
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Lam reiterated that the government was still refining the details, and although there would be some sort of plan “limiting individual movements”, a “wholesale city lockdown” would not happen.
“I’ve said we’re not imposing a wholesale city lockdown. As we know in some places, imposing a citywide lockdown or grounding means no entry and no exit. This won’t be the case for Hong Kong,” she said.
“But in terms of limiting the movement of individuals to a certain extent to reduce the flow of people, we have done this in the past, and we believe it is necessary when carrying out universal testing exercises in the future.
“However, this must take into account Hong Kong’s actual circumstances, and people’s needs.”
04:22
‘Large-scale lockdown’ expected when Hong Kong launches universal Covid-19 testing, source says
That included the finance sector’s ability to operate smoothly, the public’s need to buy necessities and anti-epidemic personnel to be able to leave home, she said.
With caseloads soaring, Lam also admitted it would be impossible to put every infected person in community isolation facilities, even if many more temporary places became available in the coming weeks.
“It is difficult to estimate the number of people who have to be isolated after the screening exercise, but we’ve already had more than 200,000 confirmed cases since the fifth wave, so it is impossible to put them all into the facilities,” she said, adding that home quarantine would be necessary for many confirmed cases, as well as their close contacts.
“We do not have the resources today, nor will we have in the future, even after assistance from the central government. There is a need for diversification.”
Hong Kong lockdown ‘in second half of March’ but experts say timing wrong
According to government estimates, 70,000 temporary isolation units are expected to be available once all projects are completed with help from the central government. The first facility, in Tsing Yi, began admitting patients with mild or no symptoms on Tuesday evening.
Lam also said the government had paid attention to false and misleading messages delivered by the media on universal testing, and would provide clarifications right away.
The remarks were in response to a letter widely circulating online purportedly from entertainment tycoon Allan Zeman who complained to her about “confusing messages coming out on a daily basis” from “so-called medical experts” and the health minister.
The letter, which Lam revealed she had received, said rumours had been flying around about a lockdown, “after [the chief executive] clearly assured everyone of no lockdown”. It urged her to consider the businesses at stake, as well as people living in cramped housing.
Francis Lee Lap-fung, dean of Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, said the government had failed to understand the real reasons behind the public’s concerns.
“The government has enough platforms including stand-up [briefings], press conferences to deliver whatever policies they want the public to know,” he said.
“Instead of blaming the media, the government should present a clear picture of its plans and policies to minimise the sense of fear floating in the community.”
All but 27 of Wednesday’s 55,353 infections, meanwhile, were locally transmitted, pushing the total tally to 293,730.
Another 117 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours. Among the patients, aged 58 to 100, 78 lived in care homes while 95 had no vaccination records.
Together with 43 earlier deaths reported only on Wednesday, the city’s Covid-19 toll now stands at 1,182.
Another 55 care homes reported Covid-19 infections, with 761 new cases.
Hospital Authority chief manager Dr Larry Lee Lap-yip said that to boost the patient capacity of public hospitals, powerful exhaust fans were being installed in some general wards to increase ventilation.
Earlier, the University of Hong Kong’s Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a top infectious diseases expert, urged private hospitals to do more as public facilities were looking like “battlefields”. Public hospitals have been inundated with Covid-19 patients for weeks, leading to congested wards, crowded corridors and even beds placed outdoors at some facilities.
“It would be morally wrong to turn away [Covid-19 positive] patients from private hospitals and refer them to Hospital Authority hospitals, when [those] hospitals are flooded like a battlefield situation,” Yuen wrote in a message to the media
He said some patients who had gone to private hospitals for life-supporting procedures such as haemodialysis had been denied treatment after testing positive for the coronavirus.
‘Hong Kong private hospitals risk system collapse if they received Covid-19 patients’
A visit by Dr Liang Wannian, leader of the National Health Commission’s Covid Response Expert team, entered its third day with him meeting Department of Health and Hospital Authority officials. The government said the two sides discussed data analysis and key control measures.
Scepticism from local experts towards holding citywide testing later this month continued to mount.
A team of University of Hong Kong researchers had warned on Tuesday that the exercise would have little effect if there were not enough isolation facilities to handle all the cases uncovered, an assessment that was echoed on Wednesday by Dr Wilson Lam, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Society for Infectious Diseases.
“The goal of mass testing is early identification of Covid-19 patients. It has to be coordinated with early isolation. If we fail to isolate the patients in separate facilities, the effectiveness of mass testing will be greatly reduced,” he told a radio programme, noting that he believed there were far more cases circulating in the community than were known to authorities.
Professor Ivan Hung Fan-ngai of HKU also said mass testing was not useful at this stage, adding that the outbreak would subside on its own as the share of the population with two doses of vaccine approached 95 per cent, and as mounting infections further built up immunity.
“Mass testing is more useful when the outbreak is winding down. It could effectively curb transmission and achieve ‘zero Covid’ within one week when all patients are isolated in government facilities,” he said, suggesting officials test residents three times within a nine-day period in early to mid-April.
What Covid-19 lockdown can Hong Kong handle … or is it ready at all?
Separately, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung returned to the office for work on Wednesday following a stretch of home quarantine after his wife and a domestic helper contracted the coronavirus. Tang conducted rapid antigen tests on Tuesday and Wednesday, both of which were negative.
Meanwhile, public transport companies announced they would suspend or reduce more services after more employees were infected or placed under isolation.
The MTR Corporation recorded another 168 confirmed cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 1,500 amid the fifth wave, while KMB said more than 2,000 of its employees could not report duty after testing positive or being quarantined.
Citybus and New World First Bus recorded 490 positive infections while 238 close contacts of confirmed cases had been quarantined, accounting for more than 15 per cent of the company’s total workforce
Additional reporting by Nadia Lam, Elizabeth Cheung and Rachel Yeo
