Xi Jinping, the president of China, is at risk of seeming optimistic, but here’s why:

On June 30, when Xi Jinping went to the former British colony, he posed for a group photo with a politician from Hong Kong. Reports in the news say that this politician has tested positive for COVID-19. Steve Ho Chun-Yin, who was sitting one row behind Xi, said on Thursday that he had tested negative during the celebration’s photo session, where he was sitting one row behind Xi. After getting a slightly positive test on Friday, the congressman said he had to get retested. According to a post on his official Facebook page, he didn’t go to any of the events that day to mark the handover anniversary.

Then, CNN said that he was found to have the virus on Sunday. Xi went to Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of when Britain gave the city back to China. It was his first trip outside of mainland China since the pandemic, and security was tight.

China has put up a media barrier around Xi’s trip to Hong Kong, making it impossible for journalists from well-known foreign media outlets to cover it. John Lee was sworn in as the sixth chief executive of Hong Kong in front of Chinese President Xi Jinping. This shows that 25 years after taking power, Beijing still has a firm grip on the former British colony.

The conference to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the “motherland” and the event to inaugurate the sixth term of the Hong Kong administration was where Xi reportedly administered his oath.

The Chinese premier came to a city that has changed a lot since three years ago, when millions of people demonstrated in the biggest challenge to Beijing’s power in decades, according to the New York Times (NYT).

“After the handover, Hong Kong became a “real democracy.” One Country, Two Systems says that there is “no need at all to change” because China did things “for the sake of Hong Kong.” “Xi Jinping remarked.

Someone who came into contact with Xi and tested positive for the virus is bad news for the Hong Kong government, which spent a lot of time and money getting ready for the visit and trying to keep the city free of Covid. Due to the virus, most of the border between Hong Kong and the rest of China is still closed.

Hong Kong said on Sunday that it will give out more than 290,000 COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) kits. This is in response to the recent discovery of the coronavirus in sewage samples.

According to Xinhua, the test kits will be given to locals, cleaning staff, and property management staff who work in places where sewage testing found relatively high virus loads. This will help find people who are sick.