Hong Kong: Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for Hong Kong to take “all the necessary actions” to control the Covid-19 outbreak driven by Omicron, a newspaper affiliated with Beijing in the city said on Wednesday, the day after the leader Carrie Lam ruled out China – Hard Lockdown Style.
Hong Kong is currently in the worst koronavirus outbreak, registering more than a thousand cases confirmed a day because the hospital reaches its peak point.
Lam this week insisted on “wholesale” hard – which had been put in place in various cities to mandate cases – would not be imposed on Hong Kongers.
On Wednesday, the local newspaper Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po – who answered to the Beijing office in the city – reported XI had asked the authorities to “apply every step needed to ensure protection” from public health.
Hong Kong’s needs “to prioritize stabilize and control the Covid situation above everything”, the letters reported Chinese leaders.
After the comment publication of XI, Lam expressed “thank you” for his worries.
“The government will, in accordance with the important instruction of President XI Jinping, assumed the main responsibility for … adopting all the steps needed to protect the life and health of Hong Kong people,” he said in Wednesday’s press release.
The Chinese authoritarian remains one of the few places in the world who adheres to the policy of “zero-covid” – inhibits the signs of outbreaks with weeks of weeks throughout the city, widespread-contacts and testing.
But it is not clear whether Hong Kong, one of the most dense cities in the world, can make it back to zero-covid even with full locking, given a number of omicron infections they are now facing.
The emergence of an omicron variant which was very contagious sending the authority to scramble in 2022 – raising social distance steps, closing school and dinner night, and even destroying hamsters when some rats were tested positive for viruses.
LAM administration has been seeking help from Chinese officials – especially with testing capacity and needs for rapid construction of more quarantine facilities – during weekend meetings.
The latest scenes in the city resemble the initial phase of pandemic, with buyers cleaning supermarket shelves to provide food and essence.
This week the hospital was bent under the pressure of increasing infection, with at least two facilities placing patients in the bed in open air – many of them were clustered under several layers of blankets.
Hong Kong on Wednesday reported 4,280 confirmed cases, new records.