Laura and Nick fight back tears as they try to console their crying 11-month-old daughter, Ava, through a phone screen.
"We love you, Bubba, and we're coming to get you, beautiful. We'll do it, "In a video of a phone chat with their child that the parents shared with CNN, Laura says.
Despite the fact that Laura and Nick are in the same city, they are not permitted to visit Ava in Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital, where the newborn is recovering from Covid-19 after testing positive on Monday. For reasons of privacy, they have begged CNN not to publish their complete identities.
The tight laws in Hong Kong prohibit interaction between Covid-19 patients and their immediate families, including the youngest patients like Ava, who do not test positive.
Although the city is not completely shut down, authorities are stepping up efforts to combat the fifth and most serious wave of Covid-19, including requiring mandatory mass testing of the city's more than 7 million citizens.
The mandated testing push has sparked widespread fears across the city that if more positive instances are discovered, more families would be split up and children will be placed in isolation.
Laura breaks down in tears as Ava sobs in the video. "I can't take it any longer," she says as her husband makes a desperate call to a nurse who looks to be on the other end of the line.
"Nurse, just give her some comfort," Nick begs as a nurse in a complete hazmat suit, her face hidden behind a shield, emerges on the screen.
Ava can only be released if she tests negative seven days after her admission, according to Hong Kong policy. Laura and Nick intend to take a Covid test and hope that it will come back positive, allowing them to reunite with their daughter in a government-run quarantine camp.
"We're simply powerless. We're completely helpless "Laura stated to CNN. "It is not in her best interests for her to be separated from us. She is in need of us, and we are in need of her."
The most stringent limitations in Hong Kong
Hong Kong relied on a combination of strict quarantines and track-and-trace procedures to isolate positive cases for over two years, keeping the city virus-free.
However, in the face of the latest wave, which officials have dubbed a "tsunami," those preparations appear insufficient.
In the last three weeks, Hong Kong has reported nearly five times the number of cases as the whole pandemic. The city reported an all-time high of 8,674 new cases on Wednesday, with the great majority being the highly contagious Omicron strain.
Still, Hong Kong continues to adhere to China's strict zero-Covid policy, and in an effort to combat the surging fifth wave -- predicted to peak in the next three weeks -- the city's leader, Carrie Lam, on Tuesday announced its toughest restrictions yet.
All Hong Kong residents -- about 7.4 million people -- will have to undergo three rounds of compulsory Covid-19 testing in March, Lam said during a news conference. In between those tests, residents will have to take daily rapid antigen tests, Lam added.
Public and international schools -- which are already conducting online classes -- will break early for the summer to free their premises for use as temporary isolation, testing and vaccination facilities. An existing ban on in-person dining past 6 p.m., the closure of gyms and entertainment venues, and flight bans from nine countries, will be extended until at least April 20.
In a bid to keep Hong Kong strictly in line with its zero-Covid strategy, China announced last week that it will send health experts and medical supplies to Hong Kong and help build new quarantine and isolation facilities.
"With central government's support and the Hong Kong people's unity, we will certainly triumph over this pandemic. After the storm we will see a rainbow again," Lam said Tuesday.
But even Beijing's help might not be enough.
Modeling by experts at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) predicts the number of confirmed cases to peak at around 183,000 a day in early to mid-March.
Dr. Edwin Tsui, the controller of the Centre for Health Protection, said mass testing is likely to confirm a large number of positive cases the city would then have to manage.
He said the city's health system may need to "handle thousands or tens of thousands of cases...in a very short period of time."
Families fear separation
Laura and Nick are not the first Hong Kong parents to be separated from their children. During an outbreak last year, reports emerged of children being sent to hospital, even if they were asymptomatic.
Ava's worried parents took her to the hospital on Monday after she came down with a fever and had difficulty breathing. When Ava's Covid test came back positive, her parents were told to leave, Laura said.
The family's story was posted on a popular Facebook group and has since spread, prompting panicked discussions between Hong Kong parents about what could happen if their children test positive and they test negative, like Laura and Nick.
CNN reached out to Lam's office about the family's case but has not received a response. When asked about separating children from their parents in April last year, Lam reiterated that Hong Kong was a "compassionate government."
"We have been applying this exceptional treatment...instead of sending the very young kids on their own to a quarantine center...we will exceptionally accept the admission of the children into the hospital as well," Lam said.
But as cases soar and Hong Kong insists on sending most positive cases to the hospital or government-run quarantine facilities, officials' stance on family separation seems less clear.
The chief manager of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority, Dr. Lau Ka-hin, said Tuesday officials would "try our best" to treat parents and children who have tested positive in the same hospital.
Ava's father, Nick, said they were living "a real-life nightmare."
"If she's in stable condition, why can't we just take her home?" he said.
Laura added; "We're not asking for a spare bed at the hospital. I would stand next to her bed. I will sit on a chair next to her for the remaining five days. I just need to be with her."
A Hospital Authority spokesperson told CNN that as they had not tested positive it was "not advisable" for Ava's parents to stay in the hospital's isolation facilities.
If in due course they are confirmed as having Covid-19, "the hospital will try to facilitate and arrange them to stay in the same ward if the situation allows," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that when Ava was in respiratory distress, her parents were not allowed to visit as she was receiving one-on-one care in the intensive care unit.
"The hospital understands the stress of the parents for not being able to accompany their child, therefore (a) video call would be arranged up to three times a day," the spokesperson said.
According to Odile Thiang, a clinical adviser for mental health NGO Mind HK, family separation "is incredibly taxing for both the parents and the child."
"In both cases, there are experiences of anxiety, depression, and of course, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)," Thiang said. "And these impacts are felt long after the actual traumatic event."
For Laura, this is more than just her own family's ordeal.
"The fear is that you'll have to choose between taking your child to get the medical attention they require and keeping them at home so you're not separated," she added.
"And that is precisely the circumstance in which many parents will find themselves in Hong Kong. That will have a catastrophic effect. And no parent should be forced to make such a decision."
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