Hong Kong mulls tighter social curbs as it battles Covid surge

Bloomberg

Hong Kong is considering stricter social-distancing measures to try to curtail an escalating Covid-19 outbreak that’s strained its hospitals and exposed an inadequate health infrastructure.
The current wave of infections, by far the most severe the city has faced during the pandemic, is testing Hong Kong’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus.
Scenes of elderly patients lying on gurneys in the street because hospitals have no more space and frightened residents flooding emergency rooms have shocked residents, and drawn a rare rebuke from China’s President Xi Jinping.
“We have to closely look at the situation in the next week or two to decide how to contain it,” Edwin Tsui, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, Tsui said at a briefing. Among measures under consideration are having police perform checks on people’s vaccination status in shopping malls and further limiting dining-in at restaurants, he said.
Last week, Xi called for Hong Kong officials to take “all necessary measures” in getting the city’s outbreak under control, an unusually direct intervention. The Chinese president said Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s government should make stabilising the Covid-19 situation its top priority, according to Chinese media.