Fighting back tears, Laura and Nick struggle to comfort their sobbing 11-month-old daughter, Ava, through a phone screen.
"Bubba, we love you…we're going to come and get you darling. We will," Laura says, in a video of a phone call with their child the parents shared with CNN.
They're in the same city, but Laura and Nick aren't allowed to visit Ava at Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital, where the infant is recovering from Covid-19 after testing positive on Monday. They've asked CNN not to publish their full names for privacy reasons.
Hong Kong's strict rules ban contact between Covid-19 patients and their immediate families who do not test positive, even the youngest patients like Ava.
The city's not in full lockdown, but authorities are tightening measures to combat its fifth and most serious wave of Covid-19, including rolling out mandatory mass testing of its more than 7 million residents.
The mandatory testing drive has led to widespread fears throughout the city that, as more positive cases are identified, more families could be separated – with children placed in isolation.
On the video, Laura breaks down as Ava sobs. "I can't bear it," she says, as her husband makes a desperate appeal to a nurse, who appears to be holding the phone.
"Nurse, just give her some comfort please," Nick begs, as a nurse wearing a full hazmat suit appears on the screen, her face covered with a shield.
Under Hong Kong policy, Ava can only be discharged if she tests negative seven days after her admission. Laura and Nick are planning to take a Covid test; they say they hope it will be positive, so they have a chance of being reunited with their daughter in a government-run quarantine camp.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23/asia/hong-kong-family-separated-covid-intl-hnk/index.html