Hong Kong leader tests positive for COVID after APEC forum

John Lee’s positive test result comes days after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok.

Hong Kong leader John Lee has tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling to a regional economic summit in an effort to restore the city’s battered international image and struggling economy.

Lee tested positive on Monday, the city’s government said, days after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Bangkok.

“The Chief Executive is undergoing quarantine in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Centre for Health Protection,” the government said in a statement.

Lee’s office said he would work from home during his mandatory isolation period, and no member of his staff who accompanied him had tested positive.

The APEC summit was Lee’s first overseas trip since taking office in July and his first in any official capacity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic almost three years ago.

Lee, a former security chief and policeman, cast the trip as an opportunity to promote Hong Kong’s return to the international stage after the city in September ended its controversial mandatory hotel quarantine regime for arrivals.

Despite the lifting of mandatory quarantine, arrivals to the city in October were down almost 98 percent compared with the same month in 2019.

The city is deep in recession for the second time in three years, with the economy contracting 4.5 percent in the July-September period after shrinking 1.3 percent the previous quarter.

In Thailand, Lee said he would tell “good stories” about Hong Kong, whose overseas reputation has also been hammered by China’s sweeping crackdown on dissent in the former British colony.

Agencies