Hong Kong to Ban All Restaurant Dining, Require Masks Outside, Cable TV Says

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Hong Kong will ban all dine-in services at restaurants and require masks outdoors, local Cable TV reported, as the city’s worst coronavirus outbreak shows no sign of abating after more than 100 local cases were registered for five consecutive days.

The tightening of rules will be effective from Wednesday, the outlet reported, citing unidentified people. There will be exemptions for the mask requirement, it said, without giving further details.

The city reported 103 local cases on Sunday. About a third of the infections were of unknown origin, signaling that hidden chains of transmission were seeded in the community. Before this month, the reported number of daily locally transmitted infections had never topped 28.

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Authorities had previously banned dining-in after 6 p.m. and expanded mask-wearing requirements, from public transportation to indoor public venues.

Although the government is trying to boost testing and expand quarantine and hospitalization facilities, the long stretch that saw the city seemingly dodge the Covid-19 bullet has left its defenses low.

The Asian financial center has been taken off-guard by the sudden jump of infections after managing to contain the spread locally as it tore across the world. Its medical infrastructure is coming under strain -- isolation beds and wards in public hospitals have reached 80% capacity, and Hong Kong’s total testing capacity is smaller than other places in the region that are also facing resurgences.

Unlike in some countries where it’s mostly young people who are recently becoming infected, Hong Kong’s current surge is affecting an older group of people, raising the likelihood of more cases turning critical.

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