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. Johnson is battling damaging allegations that he and staff attended boozy events during lockdowns, prompting public and political fury, and an investigation by senior civil servant Sue Gray.

He has apologised for a May 20, 2020 party in the Downing Street garden, telling parliament last week he had not known about it in advance and "believed implicitly that this was a work event".

But his combative former senior adviser Dominic Cummings, who has been waging a vendetta against Johnson since he was sacked in November 2020, said he warned his then boss about the event at the time.

An aide to Johnson who reportedly sent out invitations to more than 100 people was told by two senior officials to cancel it, and he would have checked with the prime minister before going ahead, Cummings said.

Cummings wrote in a blog post that he told Johnson that Downing Street was becoming a "madhouse". The prime minister "waved it aside", he added.