Hong Kong’s Covid Crackdown Empties Stores and Sets Off Exodus

HONG KONG — As the government in Hong Kong struggles to contain the city’s worst Covid outbreak ever, some residents have panicked. They have emptied supermarket shelves of vegetables and meat. They have raided drugstores for pain and fever medication. Those who could afford it have jumped on flights out of the city.

Tens of thousands of new Omicron cases are being reported each day, and deaths have surged. The anxiety gripping Hong Kong is not just about the explosion of infections, but also about what the government will do next. Mixed messages from officials have left residents wondering: Will there be a lockdown? Will we be sent into isolation facilities? Will our children be taken from us if they test positive?

Under pressure from Beijing to eliminate infections, Hong Kong officials have vowed to test all 7.4 million residents. Such an operation would require restricting people’s movements, but the government has been ambiguous about whether it would impose a lockdown, and if so, when. Just the possibility of one, however, set off the run on groceries and other supplies.

“I’ve been here most of my life, through everything, and it’s never come to something like the panic I’ve seen by the public,” said Allan Zeman, 72, a property developer and an adviser to Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam.

The city’s fatality rate from the virus is currently among the world’s highest, at three per 100,000 residents, largely because many older Hong Kongers are unvaccinated. (Since the pandemic started, though, Covid has killed Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations, as well as in Hong Kong.)

Hong Kong is one of the last places in the world that is still trying to eradicate the coronavirus, rather than live with it. It has doubled down on a strategy of isolating every case found, regardless of severity and symptoms, and imposing quarantine orders on people deemed close contacts, despite a shortage of facilities and workers. Rising infections, as well as the government’s measures, have already overwhelmed hospitals, morgues, ambulance services and quarantine facilities, and forced understaffed post offices, banks and even prisons to cut back on services.

Residents have been particularly alarmed by the government’s approach to children who test positive for the coronavirus. The city erupted in an outcry two weeks ago after health workers took an infected 11-month-old girl from her parents and isolated her in a hospital. One parent is typically allowed to accompany a child, but the hospitals are too crowded, with hundreds of children stuck in Covid isolation wards. Officials later said they would organize video chats to allow hospitalized children to stay in touch with their family members.

Kaylah Tong, a 35-year-old pastor, said that she sent her 2-year-old son to a hospital last month after he had tested positive, with a high fever and convulsions. He stayed alone in an isolation ward for two days.

A doctor had initially warned her that her son could be kept in isolation for weeks because of the hospital’s Covid-19 protocols, which include requiring patients to test negative before being discharged. That made…