The US warned its citizens against traveling to Hong Kong, citing the risk of children being separated from parents, as the Chinese territory imposes controversial COVID-19 isolation policies.
The US Department of State upgraded Hong Kong to its highest “Do Not Travel” warning “due to COVID-19 related restrictions, including the risk of parents and children being separated.”
“In some cases, children in Hong Kong who test positive have been separated from their parents and kept in isolation until they meet local hospital discharge requirements,” the department added.
Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong is in the grip of its worst COVID-19 outbreak, registering tens of thousands of new cases each day, overwhelming hospitals and shattering its zero-COVID strategy.
China has ordered local officials to stamp out the outbreak even as studies suggest as many as one-quarter of the territory’s residents might have been infected in the current wave.
Authorities plan to test all 7.4 million residents later this month, and are scrambling to build a network of isolation camps and temporary hospitals, with China’s help, to house the infected.
“It remains our policy objective to subject all confirmed people to isolation at places other than their places of accommodation so as not to infect others,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) wrote in a progress report this week.
That has deepened anxieties about family separations in the months ahead and the warning by the US is the first time the risk has been specifically cited in a travel advisory.
More than 220,000 infections have been recorded in the past two months, compared with just 12,000 for the rest of the pandemic — while its death rate is currently four times that of Singapore.
The real figure is believed to be far higher in part because residents are worried about informing authorities they are infected.
An outbreak of the highly infectious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has been tearing through the territory since January.
The government was caught flat-footed with few plans in place to deal with a mass outbreak, despite the two-year breathing room afforded by the zero-COVID success.
Hong Kong has since seen overflowing hospitals and morgues, shortages of medics and ambulances, panic buying and a frantic expansion of its spartan quarantine camp system.
The vast majority of those dying are over 70 and unvaccinated after Hong Kong failed to raise its elderly vaccination rate, despite ample supplies.
The outbreak has led to the imposition of the toughest restrictions yet, with more than a dozen types of businesses ordered to close and a ban on more than two people gathering in public. -
Departures by foreign residents have spiked, while businesses have voiced growing frustration and alarm over the territory’s descent into further international isolation.
Last week, it emerged that some parents were being separated from children — including babies — who had tested positive and were being treated in hospital.
Hong Kong health authorities have defended the policy of separating sick children from their uninfected parents, saying that rapidly filling hospital spaces should be reserved for patients.
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