Economics
Hong Kong Backpedals on Home Quarantine for Covid Sub-Variants
- City had shifted to home quarantine during recent deadly wave
- Specter of central isolation lingered with camps on standby
This article is for subscribers only.
Hong Kong is reviving one of its toughest Covid Zero measures, forcing patients with even mild infections caused by new omicron sub-variants and their close contacts into centralized quarantine to tame any spread.
People infected with sub-strains including BA.2.12.1 who aren’t severely sick, as well as their close contacts, will be sent to government facilities like Penny’s Bay as officials try to ring-fence their spread. The rule has been enforced for all 34 people with the newest forms of the virus in the city thus far, officials said, including at least two families linked to a cluster at a Canadian school who argued that their living situations were suitable for home isolation.