Prognosis
Hong Kong’s Covid Isolation Plan Crumbles as Infections Soar
- Nine times more cases projected than planned isolation space
- Chaos, late discharge in isolation camps as manpower lacking
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As Hong Kong’s new daily virus infections surged past 20,000 at the weekend, officials made a tacit acknowledgment that their system of confining every infected person -- a key pillar of the Covid Zero strategy -- had collapsed.
Vaccinated patients can now isolate at home and resume normal life once they test negative twice, the government said, an arrangement that formalized what had already been apparent for weeks as the city’s outbreak surged: Hong Kong has no place to confine all its Covid-positive people and probably should stop trying.