Coronavirus overwhelms Hong Kong, which invokes emergency powers to allow help from Chinese doctors

The government of Hong Kong Thursday invoked emergency powers to allow doctors and nurses from China can exercise in the city, at a time when it is facing an intense outbreak of coronavirus covid-19 accelerated by omicron variant.

“The regulation will provide the legal framework for the GCP (Central Government of the People) to provide the necessary emergency support to Hong Kong effectively and expeditiously”the local government said in a statement.

The densely populated city faces its worst wave of covid-19with thousands of daily cases that saturate hospitals.

The local authorities adopted a strategy of zero covidsimilar to that of Chinawhich allowed him to keep the pandemic under control for two years.

But the arrival of the contagious omicron variant penetrated the defenses and generated a wave of cases that led the authorities to ask China for help.

“Hong Kong faces a serious epidemiological situation that is deteriorating rapidly”the government said in the statement, announcing the emergency powers.

The doctors of China currently do not have authorization to practice in Hong Kong without complying with local regulations.

The emergency powers “exempt certain people or projects from the relevant requirements (…) to increase Hong Kong’s epidemiological control capacity” in handling “the fifth wave (of covid-19) for a short period” , adds the statement.

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