Since 2020, Hong Kong has had its border closed. There are very few landing flights and transit permits for Hong Kong. This effectively isolates a city which was once a major financial center.

It was very difficult for Chinese residents to return home to their territory under Chinese rule. Residents spent time “washing out”, in other countries, for up to two weeks before finally being permitted to go home.

Residents have fled the area due to the rules and mixed messages from government officials, such as whether mass testing or a lockdown would be implemented in all cities.

According to net outflows, more than 54,000 Hong Kongers have fled Hong Kong in March. This is compared to 71,000 people fleeing the city in February, and almost 17,000 before the fifth pandemic wave hit. It raises concerns about the city’s long-term viability.

The city is reeling economically and businesses are closing down. Doctors say that many of its 7.4 million inhabitants are struggling with increasing mental health problems, especially among the low-income.

Lam stated that a plan for mass coronavirus testing will be canceled, citing experts who claimed it wasn’t a good time.

The former British colony, while it still maintains the “dynamic zero coronavirus” policy (similar to China), which attempts to control all epidemics, has begun to shift to mitigation strategies, as more people die.

Hong Kong has registered the most deaths per million people globally in recent weeks — more than 24 times that of rival Singapore — owing to a large proportion of elderly people who were unvaccinated as the highly transmissible omicron variant ripped through care homes since February.

The densely packed city has recorded more than 1 million infections since the pandemic started and about 5,000 deaths — most of them in the past month.

Health experts estimate that as many as 4,000,000 people might be infected.