Hong Kong’s New Covid Rules Face Resistance From Weary Public
- City imposed limits on families gathering in private premises
- Cases surge as authorities push on with Covid Zero strategy
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Hong Kong’s escalating campaign to stamp out its biggest ever Covid outbreak is facing resistance from a population that’s distrustful of the government and weary of a zero-tolerance strategy that much of the world has abandoned.
From Thursday, the city banned more than two families from gathering in private premises, though officials say they won’t go door-to-door to actively enforce the rule. While it’s similar to an approach deployed in places like Australia and Singapore -- which relied at least in part on residents to inform authorities about rule breakers -- the measure has come much later in the pandemic and in the face of an easily-transmissible variant that’s thrown the viability of Hong Kong’s Covid Zero strategy into doubt.