As the United States discusses easing restrictions on commerce and government activity amid the spread of coronavirus, a recent spike in cases in Hong Kong shows the challenges of repoening society.
In late February, the number of cases in Hong Kong was relatively stable. According to press releases from Hong Kong's government, the region had nearly 100 cases.
At the end of the month, Hong Kong began easing restrictions and reopening government institutions.
But in recent days, Hong Kong has been addreessing another wave of cases.
In the last week, the number of cases in Hong Kong has doubled to 386, as of Tuesday.
"The first wave was the worries of transmissions from Mainland (China), so we have put in a lot of measures," Hong Kong Executive Carrie Lam said. "You can see from the statistics that actually the last Mainland-related infection case happened a long time ago now - it's in February, early February. The second wave was the local transmissions, with those clusters arising from dinners and other things. Now we are facing the third wave."
While many of the early cases were from travelers from Mainland China or other parts of the world, a number of recent cases have been reported with no known link to travel or related cases.