For two years, Hong Kong successfully insulated most of its residents from COVID-19 and often went months without a single locally spread case. Then the omicron variant showed up. The mutation breached Hong Kong’s defenses and has been spreading rapidly.
Under the zero COVID-19 policy, everyone who tests positive in Hong Kong needs to be isolated. While this worked in the past, Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, does not have the beds to isolate so many people in a large outbreak.
Scientists believe that the omicron variant is milder than the delta version of the virus. But Hong Kong’s situation is nearly unique. In other nations where the omicron variant spread, people had immunity from vaccines or previous infections, and this blunted the severity of the disease. Irene Leung, who is 70, said she didn’t feel the need to be vaccinated earlier because the pandemic was under control in Hong Kong. On Friday, she lined up for her first dose.
But Benjamin Cowling, who studies epidemics at Hong Kong University, advised against mass testing in March since it would be hard to deal with the sheer number of confirmed cases that the approach would throw up. Instead, he suggested using the nimbler, rapid tests to alert people to isolate at home if they were infected and had mild symptoms.
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