HK shuts all but two crossings to mainland

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February 4, 2020

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HK shuts all but two crossings to mainland

Source: AFP | 00:00 UTC+8 February 4, 2020 |

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Hong Kong announced it was closing all but two land crossings with the Chinese mainland yesterday to slow the spread of a deadly new coronavirus as medics staged strikes calling for the border to be completely sealed.

The city has 15 confirmed cases of the disease.

Yesterday afternoon chief executive Carrie Lam said all land crossings would be closed at midnight except for two bridges, the first connecting Hong Kong to Shenzhen and the second linking it with Zhuhai and Macau.

The city’s airport — one of the world’s busiest — would remain open to mainlanders, although there are already restrictions on people from the central Hubei Province where the epidemic began.

Lam said the latest closures — after four crossings were shuttered last week — would reduce the number of mainlanders and allow officials to focus resources on two land entry points as well as the airport. “The numbers will come down,” she told reporters.

Lam reiterated her view that a complete closure of the border would be impractical, economically damaging and discriminatory given the close links between Hong Kong and the mainland.

Yesterday, hundreds of medical workers walked off their jobs for the start of a five-day strike.

The first batch were “non-essential” staff but the union has said more strikers, including frontline doctors and nurses, will walk out today after they rejected the government’s latest move.

The city’s Hospital Authority, which employs 75,000 people, warned that half of pre-booked operations would be canceled but the strike appeared to have little impact on emergency procedures.

Lam said her decision to close more border crossings was not sparked by the strikes, which she described as an “irrational act.”

Some 13,400 mainlanders entered Hong Kong on Saturday, down from 27,800 three days earlier before the partial checkpoint closures were announced.

More than 100,000 Hong Kong residents are also returning to the city each day, 56,000 via land crossings with the mainland.

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HK shuts all but two crossings to mainland

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