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HONG KONG, China (AFP) — A Hong Kong lawmaker who posed for a gaggle picture with Chinese language President Xi Jinping throughout the chief’s go to to the monetary hub this week confirmed Sunday he has since examined constructive for coronavirus.
Xi visited Hong Kong underneath strict safety measures to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the town’s handover from Britain in his first journey outdoors mainland China for the reason that outbreak of the pandemic.
Steven Ho, a 42-year-old member of Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing occasion who sits within the metropolis’s rubber stamp legislature, was certainly one of about 100 officers granted shut contact with Xi for a photograph name on Thursday afternoon.
Ho was standing two rows straight behind Xi, in response to the images launched by the federal government.
The lawmaker examined detrimental on the primary day of Xi’s go to on Thursday and returned an unsure take a look at on Friday, he mentioned.
He didn’t participate in any occasions on Friday after the unsure take a look at end result, he mentioned in a press release on social media.
“The pattern of July 1 was one with extraordinarily low infectivity and it was categorised as ‘unsure’, however for the sake of public safety, I didn’t take part within the occasions on that day,” Ho wrote.
Ho was the second member of the DAB occasion to have examined constructive round Xi’s go to.
Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole consultant to Beijing’s high lawmaking physique, examined constructive on Thursday and was absent from all occasions.
China is the one main economic system nonetheless pursuing a zero-Covid strategy of eliminating outbreaks as they emerge, utilizing snap lockdowns and mass testing.
Xi has not left China in practically 900 days and the huge nation’s borders have been largely sealed to most outsiders.
Hong Kong is pursuing a lighter model of zero-Covid however has saved heavy journey and gathering restrictions in place all through the pandemic.
Terribly tight guidelines have been imposed to make sure each the coronavirus and political opposition weren’t in Xi’s orbit throughout his journey to the town, the place a democracy motion has been crushed since large protests three years in the past.
Tons of of presidency officers, legislators and different invited company have been compelled into an anti-Covid “closed-loop” system, which included limiting their social contacts, taking every day PCR exams and checking right into a quarantine resort within the days main as much as the go to.
In the course of the go to, elements of the town have been shut down, outstanding dissidents have been positioned underneath heavy police surveillance, and a number of journalists have been barred from masking the official occasions.
9 arrests have been made by the town’s nationwide safety police within the week earlier than Xi’s go to and at the very least two arrests have been made on Friday.
© Agence France-Presse
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