Hong Kong reported more than 25,000 cases on Monday and death rates have exploded there, even as vaccination rates have already reached the 60 percent.

To distract from its lack of planning and loose restrictions during the Lunar New Year holidays which sent cases soaring, the HKSAR government has resumed its fervor in prosecuting dissidents and democracy advocates.

Late last week, Tam Tak-chi, a former host for Hong Kong Radio was found guilty of sedition amongst 11 other counts of security crimes as part of a larger crackdown in Hong Kong. He allegedly uttered the words, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” seen as treasonous against the PRC, as well as “death to corrupted police.”

Tam had already been held without bail for a year, and was convicted on seven counts of sedition for those statements. This marks the first sedition conviction in Hong Kong ever made after the 1997 handover to PRC administration.

The former Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Assocation, Westerner Paul Harris who is fluent in Cantonese, also fled the country after being questioned for crimes under Hong Kong’s new national security laws. He was accused by Global Times, a PRC state-run media outlet, of abusing his tenure when he “repeatedly ranted to amend the national security law for Hong Kong, challenging the authority of the Standing Committee of the [Chinese] National People’s Congress.” He fled the country last week flying directly to Turkey.

China itself reported 526 cases on Monday, an explosion from the numbers in the double digits seen in recent days.