Restaurants Serve Last Orders Ahead Of The New Ban

Several restaurants on Tuesday dished out their last meals for a while ahead of a government ban on dining-in kicks in from midnight to stem the spread of Covid-19 in Hong Kong.

The week-long ban will see restaurants limiting their service just to takeaways from Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, some people who were out to have their breakfast at a "yum cha" place in Wong Tai Sin told RTHK that the closure was inconvenient for them.

One diner, surnamed Lee, said she would have to cook breakfast at home for the next few days, but said the new stepped-up measures will help reduce the flow of people and ease the Covid-19 situation.

Another diner, who gave his name as Poon, said he regularly eats breakfast at the tea house, and said that the city's Covid-19 situation would have been fine if the government had not exempted sailors from quarantine.

The restaurant manager at the Wong Tai Sin establishment said that business has been down by as much as 70 percent since the pandemic started, and it's expected to get worse starting from tomorrow.

RTHK also spoke to some workers during lunch hour to find out what they think about the new rule.

An office worker from the commercial sector, surnamed Tang, said the new rule won't affect him much, but he's concerned about what it will mean for people working outdoors.

"It doesn't matter to me because usually I'd just buy food and bring it to the office. But to many other people, they don't have maybe an office or a fixed working location, it may [inconvenience] them a lot," he said.

Lam, a construction worker, who had just arrived for a meal at a restaurant, said he wasn't sure about what to do for lunch on Wednesday.

"Of course it will affect me. I'll probably have lunch in a park [from Wednesday]. You just can't do anything about it. But of course this will be much harder for us, at least we could eat in air-conditioned places in the past, but now we can't."

Lau, who works in the commercial sector, said the restaurant ban doesn't affect him too much as he often gets his lunch delivered.

He backed the ban, saying it will help contain the virus, but he thinks the government should have brought it in earlier.

But Wong, an office worker who likes eating out, said she thinks a complete ban on dining-in is too harsh and unfair.

One restaurant owner in Wan Chai said that he's already seen a reduction in the number of customers because a lot of people were working from home, and also because of the current prohibition of dining-in from 6pm.

He said he will close his restaurant for one week and arrange for his employees to take unpaid leave.

A ban on restaurant dining was just one of four stringent social distancing restrictions announced by the government on Monday.

The other restrictions include a ban on more than two people gathering in public, making face masks mandatory at all outdoor public places, as well as the temporary closure of sports premises and swimming pools.