Hong Kong fights deadly covid-19 outbreak

Hong Kong (CNN) — The morgue is nearly full, hospitals are overwhelmed, and as fears mount that the entire city will be closed, panicked shoppers have left supermarket shelves empty.

Hong Kong, once hailed as a success story Zero covidHe is now struggling with a deadly outbreak reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic, even though he had more than two years to prepare.

With locally transmitted cases exceed 312,000 in a city of 7.4 million In just the past two weeks, hospitals and healthcare workers in distress have reached their limits. The numbers are likely to be much higher because of suspicions that people do not report positive test results for fear of being separated from their families and placed in government isolation facilities.

Although the rampant increase was driven by Omicron variant Less lethal, Hong Kong deaths are also on the rise, especially among the city’s unvaccinated elderly. Under Our world in data, Which uses data from Johns Hopkins University, Hong Kong reported more deaths per million people per week as of March 3 than any other country or territory.

Empty shelves at the grocery store in…