Coronavirus: Hong Kong closes 10 of 13 China borders

Hong Kong has suspended 10 of its 13 border crossings with mainland China as the coronavirus outbreak spreads.

Leader Carrie Lam stopped short of closing the entire border despite calls to do so as the city fights to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which has now claimed 361 lives.

Hong Kong has now seen 15 confirmed cases of the virus. Lam had already closed some border operations, including cross-border ferries and high-speed rail services to the mainland.

But she said that closing the entire border would be “inappropriate and impractical” and called such a move “discriminatory”.

Hong Kong’s international airport will remain open, Lam said, but she added that the territory “cannot rule out further measures if [the] situation evolves”.

Read more: Chinese stocks plunge as coronavirus fears rattle markets

The city’s chief executive also admitted that there was a shortage of masks in the territory, but said the issue cannot be solved in a short period of time. 

Lam stressed the need to set up more quarantine camps in Hong Kong to isolate people infected with the virus and those they had had close contact with. 

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Referring to public opposition in the city to the camps being established near residential areas, she said: “I urge residents and district councilors not to oppose any more.”

The border closures come as government data showed that Hong Kong’s first recession in a decade deepened in the final quarter of last year.

Ongoing anti-government protests and the US-China trade war weighed on the territory’s economy, which shrunk 0.4 per cent compared to the previous quarter.

Read more: Coronavirus: China to inject billions into economy amid outbreak

But with the coronavirus outbreak and no end in sight for the protests, the worst could be yet to come for Hong Kong, warned Martin Rasmussen, China economist at Capital Economics.

“The coronavirus outbreak will probably keep the city in recession for a while longer,” he said.