Hong Kong Lacks the Resources For a China-style Pandemic Response, the City's Leader Says.

Hong Kong is struggling to get a handle on its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic, warning that it doesn't have the testing capacity to carry out the strict strategy handed down by Beijing. From a report: In Shenzhen and Shanghai, in mainland China, officials imposed restrictions on millions of people within days of local outbreaks in order to test every single resident. But Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, noted on Monday that her city doesn't have the same ability. "Hong Kong is very different from many mainland cities and therefore we cannot have any comparison," Mrs. Lam told reporters at a news conference. The difference amounts to resources and systems of governance, Mrs. Lam said. Shenzhen and Shanghai can test millions of people a day; Hong Kong's health officials can only test between 200,000 and 300,000 people a day. Hong Kong, one of the last places in the world that is still trying to get rid of the virus instead of living with it, has reported more than 700,000 cases and 4,066 deaths since late January. It is a strategy that has been dictated by Beijing but one that appears increasingly out of reach for Hong Kong, which continues to hold freedoms that don't exist in the mainland. In the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Xian, officials halted daily life and confined residents to their homes for weeks until there were no more local cases. In Tianjin, they began testing every single resident after just 20 cases of coronavirus were reported. Further separating Hong Kong from the mainland's approach, Mrs. Lam said she would not consider tightening social-distancing measures because she had to take into how residents felt about them.

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