China Begins Mass COVID-19 Testing in Hong Kong, Raising Fears of DNA Surveillance

An exhibition hall that has been converted into a makeshift treatment facility to treat patients of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is pictured in Hong Kong, China on Aug. 1, 2020. Pak Yiu/Reuters

Beijing is now directly intervening in Hong Kong’s management of COVID-19, in what many Hong Kong residents fear is an attempt to exert control over the city under the guise of support.

This past week, Chinese authorities announced its plan to send a 60-person team into Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, to assist the city in conducting widespread COVID-19 testing through nucleic acid tests.