China helps Hong Kong build quarantine centers

A foreign maid on her Sunday rest day packs her belongings after an operation against people who do not comply with social distancing measures on a subway in central Hong Kong – AFP

Faced with the outbreak of covid-19, Hong Kong is in “combat mode”, a city official said on Sunday (20), a day after the arrival of reinforcements from China to build two quarantine centers for people with the virus.

The city, one of the most densely populated in the world, is facing the worst wave of covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, with thousands of infections recorded every day.

As in mainland China, Hong Kong adheres to the “covid zero” strategy, which has largely stopped the spread of the virus but isolated the business center from the rest of the world.

However, since the emergence of the highly contagious variant omicron, authorities have been taken by surprise, mainly due to the low vaccination rate among the elderly and the lack of anticipation to deal with this epidemic outbreak.

On Saturday night, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that China State Construction International Holdings, Hong Kong’s largest construction company, will begin construction work on two temporary facilities to house around 10,000 people in isolation.

Lam also announced that hotels will be converted into quarantine centers to accommodate around 20,000 people.

His deputy, John Lee, wrote on his official blog on Sunday that the government is “in combat mode.”

“With the strong support of the motherland, we will win the battle,” he said.

Authorities appear to have redoubled their efforts to contain the pandemic after Chinese President Xi Jinping last week urged Hong Kong to take “all necessary measures”.

No timetable has been communicated regarding the time required for the construction of these facilities. It is also difficult to know whether its reception capacity will be sufficient given the vertiginous increase in the number of cases.

As in China, Hong Kong follows a policy of trying to isolate everyone who tests positive for coronavirus and has rejected calls to switch to a strategy of living with the virus.

Hong Kong has recorded more than 22,000 infections in less than two months, compared with 12,000 in the first two years of the pandemic, for a population of 7.5 million.

In recent days, for lack of available rooms, hospitals have been forced to make patients wait hours in the cold and rain in beds or chairs.

Ben Cowling, a coronavirus expert at the University of Hong Kong, explained that while quarantine facilities are helpful, increasing the number of hospital beds should be the priority, because in the current situation, “new cases requiring hospitalization will always be greater than than the places that become available”.

Lam on Friday announced plans to test all of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents by March, when they predict the number of daily cases could reach 28,000.

Massive testing is commonly practiced in mainland China. The leader has ruled out any strict confinement of the city, a common practice in China once the first epidemic outbreaks appear.

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