For many fearful Hong Kongers, memories are still fresh of SARS in 2003, a disease caused by another coronavirus discovered on the mainland
“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade.” So declared the World Health Organisation’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on February 3rd after several countries, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, had closed their borders with China or announced that foreign citizens who had recently visited China would be barred from entering. Yet many people in Hong Kong want the territory to seal itself off from the Chinese mainland.
Mrs Lam has responded with ever-tighter controls. On January 27th visitors from Hubei, the province where the virus was discovered, were banned from entering Hong Kong. On January 30th six of 14 border checkpoints were closed. Hong Kongers who had travelled to Hubei were ordered into quarantine centres. The mainland’s government also imposed restrictions, stopping the issuing of permits for tourist trips to Hong Kong.
She is in murky political water. The strikers belong to a recently formed union with links to activists who have been at the forefront of the pro-democracy unrest that has roiled the territory since June. Other unions sympathetic with the pro-democracy camp have threatened to join them, including one for bus drivers.
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