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China: COVID-19 Vaccines – Announcements/Regulatory Actions/Deployment

Financial Times
19 Feb 2022, p.1
Coronavirus pandemic
Illegal border crossings push Hong Kong Covid outbreak into China
Pressure from Beijing to eradicate outbreak raises prospect of stricter controls
China’s rigorous “zero-Covid” policy is facing an unexpected new threat in the form of illegal border crossings by people fleeing a worsening virus outbreak in Hong Kong.
Some Chinese cities have offered rewards for information about people smuggling after 15 individuals illegally entered Zhuhai, in southern Guangdong province, by boat from Hong Kong. At least four of them had Covid-19 and later travelled to other parts of China, according to Chinese media reports.
The cases came in a week when President Xi Jinping said eradicating the outbreak must be Hong Kong’s top priority. The local authorities are already weighing mandatory testing for the territory’s entire population followed by quarantine for anyone found to be infected.
The prospect of strict controls continuing with no end date is heightening business concern that Hong Kong’s position as a financial centre is being hurt by the decision to effectively cut off the territory from the outside world since early in the pandemic.
On Friday, the Chinese government’s top representative in Hong Kong summoned real estate tycoons to a meeting at which they discussed contributing hotels, properties and other resources to the effort…