Hong Kong is doing everything right and they have won their war against the coronavirus.

No lockdown, little virus

The New York Times’s staff members in Hong Kong — like many other workers there — returned to their offices on Monday for the first time in six weeks. They did so after the local government eased some coronavirus restrictions.

To get into the building that houses the Times bureau, reporters and editors had to wear a mask and walk through a thermal scanner that took their temperature. In the elevator, they found a small table with hand sanitizer and tissues, as well as a trash can. Only half of the staff comes into the office at any one time.

This is the new normal in Hong Kong — both very different from before the virus and very different from an American-style lockdown.

Subway workers clean handrails frequently. Restaurants are open, with tables spaced five feet apart. Diners are often given a small paper bag in which to put their mask — so it doesn’t infect the table, or vice versa, as Adrienne Carter, The Times’s Asia editor, told me.

Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Entrance to Hong Kong is limited mostly to residents, all of whom are tested and quarantined, even if the test is negative. And residents wear masks despite 90-degree heat. “They’re so hot,” Adrienne says. “But it feels second nature to me at this point.”

The most important point: Hong Kong’s strategy is working extremely well.

It hasn’t reported a new homegrown case in more than two weeks. Over all, only about 1,000 people — out of 7.5 million — have tested positive. Only four have died.

It’s a sign that a lockdown isn’t the only way to battle the virus. But it’s also a reminder of how different life in a post-reopening United States will be from life in countries that have most effectively stopped the virus’s spread.

Adrienne has lived most of her life in the U.S., and I asked her how well she thought Hong Kong’s strategy could be transferred to today’s United States. “I’m not sure any of it is going to fly,” she said.