Luxury storefronts have been replaced by pop-up shops selling masks. Whole floors of skyscrapers are deserted. Streets once crammed with locals and visitors jostling for space are quiet
A view of buildings in Hong Kong, June 12, 2022. Officials are saying the city will bounce back, but even before 2020, Chinese control was changing Hong Kong’s character and driving people away. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)
HONG KONG — Luxury storefronts have been replaced by pop-up shops selling masks. Whole floors of skyscrapers are deserted. Streets once crammed with locals and visitors jostling for space are quiet.
This is “Asia’s World City,” Hong Kong’s self-appointed title, after more than two years under some of the world’s toughest pandemic rules. The city now wants to reclaim that cosmopolitan status by taking its biggest step toward living with COVID-19: scrapping a crushing quarantine mandate that at one point required 21 days in a designated hotel and easing restrictions on the global gatherings that gave it its reputation as an international metropolis.
©2019 New York Times News Service