Shenzhen Covid-19 cases lower hopes of Hong Kong border reopening

Two confirmed community cases of Covid-19 in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen have further dampened hopes of a long-awaited border reopening between Hong Kong and mainland China.

The Shenzhen Health Commission said on Friday that the cases were detected in routine screening of employees in key industries, and were a husband and wife living in Buji Street in Longgang district.

It is the first time Shenzhen has reported local Covid-19 cases since an outbreak in May 2020.

The commission said the husband, 29, initially tested positive on Thursday and the results were confirmed by Shenzhen’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. His wife, also 29, tested positive during screening of close contacts.

The commission said the couple were transferred to Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital for quarantine and treatment, and authorities were tracing close contacts and disinfecting places the couple had visited.

Commission director Wu Hongyan said the authority had identified 123 close contacts of the couple and quarantined all of them. So far, no new cases had been found, she said.

“With that, we believe the outbreak should be controllable,” she said.

However, Wu said the authorities had not identified the source of the infection and so “do not rule out new cases as the testing continues”.

Shenzhen’s Coronavirus Prevention and Control Command Office also ordered Shenzhen’s residents to remain in the city unless “really necessary”. Those leaving the city will have to produce negative results of a nucleic acid test done within the previous 48 hours.

The office also urged the city’s airports, highways, railways, ports to step up pandemic control measures, barring those with red and yellow health codes from boarding any transport. Large-scale gatherings have been suspended in Longgang and Luohu districts.

A Guangdong health official said that given the cases and tighter controls in both Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the planned quarantine-free travel arrangement – mostly via Shenzhen and initially limited to Guangdong – was expected to be postponed until the outbreaks were under control.

“The immediate priority now is to trace all the close contacts and lock down the contaminated vicinity to ensure no further spread of the virus in Shenzhen,” the official said, declining to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

“Only when Guangdong and Hong Kong have both managed to control and clear the outbreak, can we resume the border opening process.”

China to create buffer zones at border cities to curb outbreaks

At least 18 locally transmitted cases have been reported in Hong Kong in recent days and the city is reimposing some of its toughest Covid-19 social-distancing measures.

Bars and gyms will close; a 6pm curfew will be in place for dine-in services; and flights will be banned from eight countries as the city braces for a fifth wave of infections buoyed by the surge in the Omicron variant.

A small outbreak began in the city of Dongguan, neighbouring Shenzhen, in December 14 but no new cases have been reported there since December 26 after a two-week lockdown of the township of Dalang, where the cases were found.

The city of Guangzhou also reported the first imported case of the Omicron variant in mid-December and a limited local outbreak.