One by one, Hong Kong’s government is being forced to move away from key pillars of its strict "COVID zero" strategy as a surge in new cases overwhelms the under-prepared health care system.
Patients with mild cases are no longer sent to hospital or isolation facilities as there’s no space; instead they’re asked to stay home until they test negative with rapid antigen tests — which people often need to buy themselves.
Close contacts, no longer recorded by the city’s elaborate contact tracing process, are moving around freely though they’re technically supposed to quarantine at home for at least a week. The app used to flag locations with confirmed cases has suspended risk alerts. Compulsory testing using PCRs has been largely dropped, with at-home rapid tests taking their place.