A group of protesters lit a lobby of a newly built residential building on fire Sunday in Hong Kong as tensions rise over the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities had announced earlier in the day that they planned to convert Fai Ming Estate, an unoccupied public building, into temporary flats for quarantine of people who could have contracted the virus.
Reuters reported that tensions over the government’s response to the alarming virus outbreak reached a fever pitch when several masked protesters, dressed in black, set a Molotov cocktail off inside the building.
The death toll of the outbreak hit 80, with 2,744 people infected worldwide on January 27, according to China’s National Health Committee. In the weeks after the outbreak, it was discovered that the coronavirus can pass from human to human via saliva or phlegm, creating newfound concerns for those living in areas with existing patients of the virus.
“We are dissatisfied with the government selecting this housing estate as a (quarantine) separation village as it’s very close to a residential area and a primary school,” a 28-year-old resident surnamed Tsang told Reuters
