More than 2,500 Hong Kong medical workers went on strike Monday morning, seeking to pressure the government to bar travel to the semi-autonomous city amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s government announced that it will close additional border checkpoints even as some strikers demand a complete shutdown, The New York Times reported. Lam reduced inbound flights, closed several checkpoints and shut down cross-border trains last week, as well as barring entry from Hubei Province, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, which she said has slashed arrivals from mainland residents by 62 percent.

However, Lam declined to impose a blanket ban on Chinese arrivals, saying it would be “a discriminatory approach” citing recommendations from the World Health Organization that noted blanket travel bans can make travelers harder to track.

ADVERTISEMENT

“To use extreme means in such a sensitive time would inevitably affect the rights of the patient and add immensely to the burdens of the already beleaguered Hospital Authority leaders,” she added in reference to the striking hospital workers.

Members of the recently formed Hospital Authority Employees Alliance picketed public hospitals Monday morning before a meeting with a Hospital Authority official, where they said they were unable to reach an agreement.

“Our discussions have fallen apart,” Winnie Yu, the chairwoman of the union, said Monday, adding that the next stage of the strike will involve a work stoppage by emergency doctors and nurses beginning Tuesday and lasting the rest of the week.

About 9,000 of the union’s 18,000 members have signed pledges to strike.

In the meantime, many Hong Kong residents have expressed concerns that bans on Chinese travelers could affect them as well, citing the case of Vietnam, which initially included Hong Kong in a ban on most incoming flights from China and Taiwan before backtracking. Most of the cases of coronavirus in the city have involved patients who recently traveled to China but the most recent appears to have involved a woman contracting it from her son, who recently traveled to Wuhan, according to the Times.