The Hong
Kong government is considering more social distancing efforts, Financial
Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Thursday, as the novel coronavirus
outbreak shows no sign of abating in the city. He did not elaborate on the
possible measures to be taken.
READ MORE: Ban on crowds urged as HK virus cases hit 410
Hong Kong, battered by the virus and months of violent protests, needs to restore the international community's confidence in the city, said Paul Chan, Hong Kong's Financial Secretary
A growing
number of imported cases and local social gatherings are being blamed for the
ongoing spread of the virus in Hong Kong.
The city
confirmed 43 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday. Twenty-nine of them were people
who returned from overseas and the rest were largely from infection clusters in
the local community.
This
takes the city's total to 453 - tripling the number at the beginning of the
month. The alarming resurgence of coronavirus infections has led to calls for
tougher measures to contain the disease.
Chan said
when he unveiled this year’s budget last month, the coronavirus was a regional
challenge faced by the Chinese mainland and Asian countries and regions. But
now it is rampaging across the world - and the worsening situation is affecting
global financial markets.
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Hong
Kong, battered by the virus and months of violent protests, needs to restore
the international community's confidence in the city, he added.
Chan
noted that current environment has created difficulties for different kinds of
companies. For small and medium-sized enterprises, the major challenge is
maintaining financial liquidity. If SMEs can ride out the storm, many jobs will
be saved.
Learning lessons from the 1997 financial crisis and the 2003 SARS epidemic, Chan said workers taking unpaid leave and having salary cuts could be used as a last resort by employers to avoid layoffs.
