Construction crews from mainland China were helping Hong Kong build two temporary isolation facilities to house thousands of coronavirus patients on Sunday as a senior official declared the city “in full combat mode”.
The crowded Chinese financial hub is in the throes of its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, registering thousands of confirmed cases a day as hospitals reach breaking point.
A strict zero-Covid policy like China uses kept infections at bay for two years but left the city cut off internationally.
And when the highly transmissible Omicron variant broke through, authorities were caught flat-footed with a dangerously under-vaccinated elderly population and few plans in place to deal with a mass outbreak.
Late Saturday city leader Carrie Lam announced that China State Construction International Holdings, the largest state-owned constructor in Hong Kong, would start work on two temporary isolation facilities to provide 9,500 extra beds.
The units will be located at Penny’s Bay, which already hosts a quarantine camp, and in Kai Tak where the city’s old airport once stood.
Lam also announced that three hotels would be used to create an additional 20,000 beds