|
 Lam said there was limited room to tighten further, with the global
financial hub already having put in place the strictest measures
since the pandemic started. Gatherings of more than two people are
banned, most venues are shut - including schools - and masks are
compulsory everywhere, even when exercising outdoors.
"The government has to be very careful before tightening social
distancing measures further ... with the need to consider the mental
health of citizens," she told a daily briefing.
Lam said last week that the government had no time frame for a
potential compulsory mass testing of Hong Kong's 7.4 million
residents, most of whom live in tightly packed high-rise apartment
blocks sharing lifts.
Health authorities reported 26,908 new infections on Monday with 249
deaths.
Hong Kong has reported more than 700,000 COVID-19 infections and
about 4,200 deaths, most of them in the past three weeks. The former
British colony has followed mainland China's "dynamic zero" policy
which seeks to curb all outbreaks as soon as they occur, instead of
trying to live with the virus.
Hong Kong's borders have been effectively sealed for two years with
few flights able to land and most transit passengers banned.
But deaths have spiked, particularly amongst its mostly unvaccinated
elderly, with the city registering the most deaths per million
people globally in the week to March 10, according to data
publication Our World in Data.
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Lam's comments came after China reported a surge
in new local coronavirus cases on Sunday, more
than triple the caseload of the previous day and
the highest in about two years.
Some mainland Chinese internet users took to social media platforms
to express anger at Hong Kong, saying it had failed to control its
outbreak and blaming it for latest surge in infections.
"Shenzhen people have been scolding Hong Kong every day for the past
month. It's very clear that it has caused so much trouble for
others," said one internet user, called Chen Shui, posting on
Chinese social media platform Weibo.
The sprawling city of Shenzhen lies on the mainland's border with
Hong Kong.
Hong Kong opened its fourth community isolation facility on Sunday,
aimed at providing more than 1,000 beds.
The city is building about 90,000 isolation units in total, with the
help of mainland authorities, to house people with mild or no
symptoms. They have been opening in stages with all expected to be
completed in coming months.
(Reporting by Farah Master, Twinnie Siu and Marius Zaharia; Editing
by Kenneth Maxwell and Nick Macfie)
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