Hong Kong’s refusal to live with covid-19 is causing chaos

HONG KONG in the past week has been under greater stress from covid-19 than ever before. First came the shocking photographs of elderly patients on beds, lined up in the cold in the car parks of overflowing hospitals. Then the reports of foreign domestic helpers—who are forced by law to live in their employers’ houses—being abandoned to the streets after testing positive. Next, a raft of announcements: schools are to be closed to become testing venues, while disused tower blocks are to be converted into isolation centres. Having managed to keep the virus at bay for two years, the territory—struggling to replicate the mainland’s “zero-covid” approach—has been badly exposed.