Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday said there were no plans to further tighten COVID-19 rules as the territory battles to contain an escalating outbreak of the virus, but said a chief executive election, set for May, had scope to be further delayed.
Lam told a daily news briefing that “legally speaking,” there was room to further delay the election for the territory’s next leader.
“A further delay cannot be decided by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region itself, it depends on how the central government sees it,” she added.
Photo: AFP
The election was originally scheduled to be held on Sunday next week, but was postponed to May 8 as a wave of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 erupted last month.
Lam, who has not yet confirmed whether she would seek another term, has seen her administration come under pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and other senior Chinese officials for Hong Kong’s handling of the virus.
Chinese have also expressed anger and frustration at Hong Kong residents flocking to beaches and shopping malls while they faced lockdowns in their own cities.
Some wrote on social media that Hong Kong had failed to control its outbreak, and blamed the territory for the latest surge of infections in mainland China.
Hong Kong has reported more than 760,000 COVID-19 cases and about 4,500 deaths, most of them in the past three weeks.
The former British colony has followed mainland China’s “dynamic zero COVID-19” policy, which seeks to curb all outbreaks as soon as they occur, instead of trying to live with the virus.
Deaths have spiked, particularly amongst its mostly unvaccinated elderly, with the territory registering the most deaths per 1 million people globally in the week to March 14, Our World in Data said.
Several local media outlets reported that the Hong Kong government would close beaches from today to prevent large gatherings.
Lam said that as public beaches were already meant to be closed, authorities would just “strengthen management,” for instance by sealing them off.
Hong Kong is facing its most draconian measures since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. Gatherings of more than two people are banned, most venues are shut — including schools — and masks are compulsory everywhere, even when exercising outdoors.
Hong Kong’s borders have been effectively sealed for two years, with few flights allowed to land and most transit passengers banned.
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