British PM denies lying about lockdown party: HK to cull hamsters after Covid found in pets

Hong Kong: Hong Kong will cull hundreds of hamsters after some tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday, as the city pushes to maintain its strict "zero-Covid" strategy.

The Chinese territory’s staunch adherence to the mainland’s "zero-Covid" policy has kept the number of cases low, but maintaining it has cut the finance hub off from the rest of the world for the last two years.

The decision to cull about 2,000 hamsters and other small animals comes after health officials recorded Covid cases at a Hong Kong pet shop. Health secretary Sophia Chan said the move will protect public health after a pet shop employee and a customer handling hamsters tested positive.

The employee was found to be infected with the Delta variant, which has become rare in Hong Kong. "Internationally, there is no evidence yet to show pets can transmit the coronavirus to humans, but... we will take precautionary measures against any vector of transmission," Chan said during a press conference.

Eleven preliminary positive samples were found on hamsters for sale at the Little Boss pet shop in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay. Officials believe they were imported from the Netherlands and urged anyone who bought a hamster after December 22 to give up their pet for culling.

About 1,000 animals from Little Boss and its warehouse will be seized and put down, while staff and customers have been sent for testing. Health officials also issued quarantine orders for around 150 people who visited the pet shop as well as more than 20 warehouse employees. The shop was shuttered Tuesday.

Another 1,000 hamsters from dozens of other pet shops across Hong Kong will also be killed and the businesses have been ordered to close temporarily. Imports of small mammals will be suspended, officials added.

Deputy agriculture chief Thomas Sit defended the cull as a precautionary measure when asked why the decision was made without a clear scientific basis. "The public should avoid kissing their pets and keep their homes clean," added agriculture director Leung Siu-fai.

"They should not abandon their pets on the streets under any circumstances." Reaction from hamster lovers in Hong Kong was swift -- and angry. "Is there anyone who can save the hamsters and other small animals?" said one person in a Facebook group called Hamster Blog HK -- which boasts more than 10,000 members.

Another ridiculed officials over the cull, telling them to "go to Wuhan and help the bats there wear two masks", referring to the Chinese city where Covid-19 first emerged two years ago.Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday "categorically" rejected claims by his former chief aide that he lied to parliament last week about a Downing Street party held during a strict lockdown.

But appearing in public for the first time after days of Covid self-isolation, Johnson also ducked questions about whether he would resign if it is established by an internal inquiry that he did lie. "I can tell you categorically that nobody told me, nobody said this was something that was against the rules, that it was a breach of the Covid rules, that it was something that wasn’t a work event," he said.

"Frankly I can’t imagine why on earth it would have been allowed to go ahead," Johnson added on a media appearance after visiting a London hospital. Meantime, the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, the World Health Organisation chief said Tuesday, cautioning against a narrative that the fast-spreading Omicron variant is risk-free.

"This pandemic is nowhere near over," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. Tedros warned against dismissing as mild the coronavirus variant Omicron, which has spread like wildfire around the globe since it was first detected in southern Africa in November.

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is much more contagious than previous strains but seems to cause less serious disease. That has triggered a debate on the virus passing from being a pandemic to becoming endemic -- with the implication that the danger will have passed.

But the WHO has warned that the sheer numbers of people infected will mean many vulnerable people are still falling seriously ill and dying. "Omicron may be less severe, on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading," Tedros said.

"Make no mistake: Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities." He said there were indications that the Omicron-fuelled surge of Covid cases may have peaked in some countries. This, he said, "gives hope that the worst of this latest wave is done with, but no country is out of the woods yet."

In a related development, big cats caged in zoos are at risk from catching Covid-19 from their keepers, a study said on Tuesday. Research led by scientists at the University of Pretoria found three lions and two pumas fell ill with coronavirus -- and the clues point to infection by their handlers, some of whom were asymptomatic. "Reverse zoonotic (animal-borne) transmission of Covid-19... posed a risk to big cats kept in captivity," the authors said.