Impose the strictest social-distancing rules: expert

A specialist in respiratory medicine on Monday warned that Hong Kong’s coronavirus cases could reach 10,000 a day in two weeks if stricter social distancing rules are not imposed.

Dr Leung Chi-chiu urged the government to impose the strictest social distancing rules to make people stay home to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.

“It’s a critical period because we’re seeing an exponential increase of the cases. It’s doubling every two to three days just as what occurred in Europe in the past two months,” he said.

“With the efforts of everyone during these two weeks, we hope to reverse the rapidly increasing trend. If not, we may be seeing over 10,000 cases per day after two weeks.”

Leung said authorities should recruit fully vaccinated young people to help with infection control work.

Hong Kong reported 614 confirmed infections for the day, with preliminary positive cases also exceeding 600.