Hong Kong is to proceed with relaxing COVID-19 curbs despite recording hundreds of cases a day, as the territory’s virus policy drifts further from Beijing’s “zero COVID-19” approach.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday said that the territory would roll back social distancing measures tomorrow as previously announced, including opening bars and extending the hours for restaurants to serve customers.
“It is reasonable to have 200 to 300 cases each day,” Lam said at a regular weekly briefing. “We don’t need to worry too much. It is also our assessment that we can safely enter the second phase of easing social distancing measures.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
From tomorrow, dining at restaurants is to be extended to midnight, bars will be permitted to open until 2am and mask requirements for indoor exercise will be lifted.
Lam continued to cite reopening the border with mainland China as one of her government’s top priorities, without saying how that would happen.
Shanghai, China’s most-populous city and one of the nation’s major economic engines, is slowly exiting a lockdown that confined 25 million people to their homes for six weeks as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sticks with the nation’s strict “zero COVID-19” policy.
The trigger for easing in Shanghai was reporting zero infections outside the city’s extensive quarantine program.
That is a far cry from the situation in Hong Kong, where hundreds of new cases are still being reported daily.
Instead, Hong Kong officials are focusing on driving up the territory’s vaccination rate to prevent a spike in serious illness that could overwhelm hospitals.
By the end of this month, all eligible residents will need to have had three vaccine doses to use Hong Kong’s Vaccine Pass, a requirement to enter restaurants and many public places.
The May 31 deadline was moved up from June 30, as local officials push to boost the territory’s vaccination rate. Just over half of Hong Kong’s eligible residents have received their third jab, government data showed.
Hong Kong still lags much of the world in its return to normalcy, with the territory maintaining mandatory seven-day hotel quarantines for vaccinated incoming travelers.
JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific Filippo Gori told Bloomberg TV yesterday in an interview that it was important that Hong Kong “keeps on moving on the relaxation process,” citing border controls as the next measure officials should ease.
“If we could have home quarantine, from a business standpoint, it would make an enormous difference because it would remove a lot of stress,” Gori said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS