Despite reiterating the increasing risks of the current Covid-19 outbreak, the government further relaxed the criteria for declaring red and yellow zones in the city.
Initially, identifying a single positive case was grounds for declaring a whole building a red zone. The government later announced on June 23 that only two positive cases would trigger the red zone designation. Residential buildings with only a single case would instead be declared yellow zones.
Yesterday, after just three days, the government made another adjustment to its criteria. The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced early Sunday in Chinese, and mid-Sunday in English, that the criteria would be further loosened.
It said that in response to the changes in the outbreak, the criteria for declaring a red zone would be changed to two apartments or families (collectively living in more than one room) with positive cases.
Under the new criteria, buildings with only one apartment or one family with positive cases will be classified as yellow zones. Buildings that were originally classified as red zones that do not satisfy the new criteria will be re-classified into yellow zones after the completion of at least one SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid test.
