What’s new: China built a temporary bridge from Shenzhen to Hong Kong for transporting materials and workers to build a makeshift Covid-19 hospital in the pandemic-hit special administrative region.
The bridge, completed over the weekend, was approved under the Hong Kong government’s emergency rules exempting the materials and related personnel transported over the bridge from customs restrictions.
About 200 construction managers and 1,700 workers from China State Construction Engineering Corp., the contractor for the makeshift hospital, were sent over the bridge to Hong Kong Sunday to start construction of the hospital. The installation at Lok Ma Chau Loop, will provide 1,000 beds as well as quarantine rooms that can accommodate 10,000 people.
After construction of the hospital is completed, the bridge will be demolished.
The background: A fifth wave of Covid-19 has been battering Hong Kong. The city reported more than 43,100 new cases Tuesday.
Since late December, the city of 7.4 million people has logged more than 520,000 cases and more than 2,300 deaths.
Hong Kong is also suffering the world’s highest Covid death rate. Its seven-day rolling average of confirmed Covid-19 deaths as of March 6 was 25.5 per 1 million people—more than five times that of the U.S.—topping a global chart maintained by Our World in Data, a project based at Oxford University in the U.K.
Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
Get our weekly free Must-Read newsletter.
