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Coronavirus: Hong Kong residents ‘bored staying at home’ hit scenic spots in the thousands at start of Easter holiday
- Ignoring official warnings, residents flock to beaches and mountains after weeks cooped up indoors
- Scant attention paid to precautionary measures, with many people leaving aside masks and crowding together
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Thousands of residents were out and about in force across Hong Kong on Friday at the start of the Easter break, ignoring pleas to follow social distancing rules and flocking to beaches and country parks even as officials warned they were risking a new wave of coronavirus infections.
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Only one among 16 new confirmed infections was a locally transmitted case, the rest coming in from overseas to take the city’s total to 989, but watching the surge of people going shopping or gathering at leisure spots, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection appealed against complacency.
“I observed that many people are on the streets,” Chuang said. “If people relax their practice of maintaining social-distancing rules, there may be a new wave of infections by asymptomatic cases.”
Reflecting the seriousness of the threat, health authorities were already planning to send people home earlier from quarantine camps to free up much-needed space.
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The single local transmission involved a 28-year-old man and was related to his girlfriend who had visited the All Night Long bar in Tsim Sha Tsui already tied to a cluster of infections, according to the centre.
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