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300,000 people in isolation or quarantine in Hong Kong; China’s COVID outbreak worsens

FILE PHOTO: People wearing protective masks walk at the Shanghai Railway Station, as the annual Spring Festival travel rush begins ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, following new cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Shanghai, China January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song

On Sunday, Hong Kong recorded over 32,000 cases and 264 COVID-related deaths. Next door, the mainland saw nearly 3,400 cases, which is one of its worst outbreaks since the pandemic started. The tech hub of Shenzhen and its 17.5 million people have been put into lockdown until March 20, with some people saying the spike there is because of Hong Kong’s situation where cases have stayed stubbornly high at 30,000 cases for a few days and up to 300,000 people are either in self-isolation or quarantine.

But the city says this number could be overstated because last month, the isolation period was shortened for the fully-vaxxed to one week instead of two.

Key comments:

“Persistent daily case counts of at least 30,000 a day show coronavirus clusters still exist in the city,” said Dr. Albert Au, health officer of the Communicable Disease Branch at the Department of Health’s Centre for Health Protection.

“At this moment, we could not comfortably say that we have passed the peak," city leader Carrie Lam told reporters over the weekend.

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