New daily cases of COVID-19 in Hong Kong top 10,000 amid surging outbreak

Hong Kong has broken a record for new daily COVID-19 cases, hitting more than 10,000. 

Health officials announced Friday Hong Kong reached 10,010 new cases as the city struggles to deal with a surge that started at the beginning of the year, The Associated Press reported.

The city has seen around 50 deaths a day from the virus recently, as many elderly people were hesitant to get vaccinated.

Hong Kong has implemented a COVID-19 vaccine passport requirement so only those who are vaccinated can go into certain venues, according to the AP.

Hong Kong has also postponed its local elections until May and announced mandatory testing for all residents. 

In March, the city aims to test all 7 million residents three times, which would require testing around 1 million residents a day.

Before the announcement of the universal testing, city leader Carrie Lam said Hong Kong would not go into a full lockdown in response to the surge. 

“Mandatory testing and a complete city lockdown may not need to go hand in hand. It depends on the actual situation,” she said. “In our case, having examined the unique situation in Hong Kong, we’ll probably just go for universal testing of everyone, but testing more times.”